Smartphones Probably not Seen as a Luxury by Students

A new report published today from Neilsen shows a significant shift in how smartphone ownership is perceived.  While the 35+ age group brackets are still relatively pragmatic about smartphone ownership (relative to their income, indicating that their perception is that a smartphone is not a “must-have” device), those in the younger age bracket see the device as something to own regardless of income.

For the first graph, look how most of the age brackets have a pretty linear profile – the more they make, the more likely it is that they will have a smartphone. Now look at the youngest age bracket – the angled profile is not there. It is more flat. This is fascinating.  While the K-12 demographic (< 18 years old) is not profiled, you can only imagine how important these devices are to them.

I’m sure there will be plenty of commentary on these findings, such as “Why would people with a lower income be finding money to own an expensive smartphone?”  There are probably plenty of arguments for and against this behavior – a strong argument for is that it may be the only computer in the home.

Regardless of these positions, what is apparent is that the smartphone is on a fast-track to ubiquity. Here are the charts:


Oh, and a plug: Are you a 1:1 school? If you are, we would love to talk with you about using those devices to inform instruction. Drop us an email. or signup for a webinar

Search

Popular Posts

  • Data Driven Instruction with Naiku

    Premier educators such as Dr. Paul Bambrick-Santoyo (Driven By Data 2.0: A Practical Guide to Improve Instruction) and Dr. John Hattie (Visible Learning) promote the use of data in enhancing instruction and student learning. In this linked white paper, Dr. Adisack Nhouyvanisvong discusses these techniques and showcases how to implement them using Naiku. Tweet

  • Achieving Visible Learning with Naiku

    Visible Learning is an excellent resource illustrating the effectiveness of student-centered learning which Naiku wholeheartedly supports. In Visible Learning and Visible Learning for Teachers, Dr. John Hattie (2009, 2012) synthesizes research studies involving hundreds of millions of students to show the effectiveness of different approaches to improve learning. Dr. Hattie found that student-centered learning strategies have the highest […]

  • Use ACT Quick Checks for Progress Monitoring

    Naiku provides over 50 ACT Quick Checks for teachers to use for student progress monitoring in all ACT test subjects. ACT Quick Checks are short, topic-focused, formative assessments; typically 6-12 questions in length. Each Quick Check contains questions from a single topic, such as Math-Functions, so teachers can use to easily monitor progress between benchmark […]

Menu