Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

8.4.10 | A new report from the Pew Hispanic Center says young Latinos age 16 to 25 are making extensive use of mobile technology to socialize and communicate with their friends.

Half of the young adults surveyed say they text message their friends every day and 45 percent say they talk daily with friends on a cell phone.

That’s far more often than their use of email or home phones: Only one in five of young Latinos surveyed by Pew say they talk daily with their friends on a landline or home phone, and just 10 percent say they email their friends every day.

Native born Latinos were more likely to text and use a cell phone than their foreign born counterparts, probably because they are more likely to own a cell phone in the first place.

However, Pew also reports that Latino teenagers communicate less via mobile technologies than non-Hispanic teenagers:

Among 16- and 17-year-olds, just under half (49%) of Hispanics text daily, compared with 64% of non-Hispanics. When it comes to talking with friends daily via cell phone, there is less of a difference—44% of Hispanics say they do, compared with half (51%) of non-Hispanics who say the same.

Read the full report from the Pew Hispanic Center here.

Plus: Craig S. Watkins, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Texas at Austin, notes that African-American and Latino youth, particularly those who live in low-income communities, have been early adopters of the mobile web.

“Young blacks and Latinos are migrating decisively towards mobile media, using the phone as their main access point or gateway to the Internet,” Watkins told Spotlight in an interview earlier this year.

In his research, Watkins found that mobile phones can be a more accessible and affordable way of getting online than a laptop or desktop computer. He notes that mobile access often gives youth more autonomy, enabling them to create their own social space for participation in the digital world, free from adult intervention.