Pew Center mobile device survey

Sabrina Pacifici over at nationally-acclaimed beSpacific , had a post yesterday about a recent Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project on mobile communication devices. ( Here )

"The rapid adoption of cell phones and, especially, the spread of internet-connected smartphones are changing people's communications with others and their relationships with information. Users' ability to access data immediately through apps and web browsers and through contact with their social networks is creating a new culture of real-time information seekers and problem solvers,” Pew found.

Its new nationally representative survey – conducted between March 15 and April 3, 2012 among 2,254 adults age 18 and older -- found evidence of this “just-in-time phenomenon,” with 88% of adults being cell phone owners and 46% smartphone owners.

“Some 70% of all cell phone owners and 86% of smartphone owners,” the study found, “used their phones in the last 30 days to perform activities such as coordinate a meeting or get-together (41%), solving unexpected problems they or someone else had encountered (35%), deciding whether to go to a certain business, such as a restaurant (30%), finding information to help settle an argument ( 27%) or looking up the score of a sporting event (23%), and getting traffic or public transit information (20%).

19% had used their phones to get help in an emergency situation in the last month.

‘Just-in-time information’ searches take place in the wider context of people using their smartphones to get needed information right away, too, though, the study found, with some 65% of smartphone owners saying they’ve used their cell phones to get turn-by-turn navigation or directions while driving -- 15% doing so on a typical day.