Along With the Temperature, Teen and Tween Cell Phone Calls Rise During the Summer

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif., July 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Now that kids are done with school for the summer, it's more than likely they'll be opening their cell phones quite often to connect with friends and family. According to a Disney Mobile Cell and Tell survey conducted by Harris Interactive, teen and tween cell phone use in the summer jumps to more than 3 hours and 45 minutes a day, an increase of more than an hour a day as compared with a normal school day.

The Disney Mobile Cell and Tell survey of more than 1,500 cell phone users 10-17 years-old found that teens and tweens like their cell phones perhaps more than other luxuries in their lives. If they had to choose between their phone or something else:

  -- One-third would give up listening to the radio, playing video games or
     going to the mall.
  -- Nearly one-fourth would give up their MP3 players
  -- One in five would give up TV.

When it comes to cell phone etiquette, just like in life, teens often say one thing and do another. According to the survey, even though nine out of ten teens and tweens think they are polite and respectful when using a cell phone, 65 percent admit to using the phone during school hours, while 58 percent of teens and tweens who use the text messaging function admit to doing so during class. One in five teen and tween cell phone owners said they can live without their cell phone, despite the fact they use it two hours or more every day.

"Usage patterns such as this show why a service-based phone like Disney Mobile is such a powerful tool for families, as it offers parents the ability to stay connected with their teens and tweens while still controlling how much and how often the child uses the phone," said Chere Heintzmann, Chief Marketing Officer for Disney Mobile.

The Disney Mobile Cell and Tell survey found that teens and tweens like to stay in touch with family and friends everywhere they go, with a whopping 96 percent touching base with their parents on a daily basis via cell phone, while 20 percent use it to touch base with their parents at least five times a day.

The survey also found that nearly half of respondents (44 percent) use text messages as their primary form of communication. The texting ranges from sending messages while at the movies (52 percent of respondents) and the dinner table (28 percent), to using text messages to ask someone out on a date (14 percent of respondents), or even to breaking up with someone, with seven percent of respondents admitting to doing so. Twenty-six (26) percent of teens and tween respondents say they check for a text message or send one less than ten minutes after waking up in the morning.

When it comes to good news, respondents said that they call mom first (40 percent), followed by their best friend (32 percent). Although they're calling friends and family with good news, respondents said that they wouldn't mind receiving a call or two from a celebrity in return. Chris Brown (26 percent) and Orlando Bloom (20 percent) were the top male celebrities that teens and tweens wanted to receive a cell phone call from, while Raven (26 percent) and Jessica Simpson (18 percent) topped the female celebrity charts.

About Disney Mobile

Disney Mobile is the first national wireless phone service built to meet the unique communication needs of today's family. It provides wireless voice and data services and custom handsets. In addition, Disney Mobile offers a package of features and applications tailored to meet the unique communication needs of families. The Family Center(TM) suite, has four innovative services (Family Monitor(TM), Family Locator(TM), Call Control(TM) and Family Alert!(TM)) which enable parents to directly manage their families' wireless experience, including controlling when and how often kids use their phones; locating kids' handsets using GPS technology; helping to protect their kids from unwanted calls and messages; and sending priority text messages to all Disney Mobile family plan members simultaneously. Disney Mobile offers an array of content that parents trust and kids enjoy drawn from the rich entertainment heritage of Disney.

About the Survey

The Disney Mobile "Cell and Tell" Survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Disney Mobile among 1,579 U.S. 10-17 year olds who own a cell phone. This data is not representative of all teens, but only those who own a cell phone. Figures for age, gender, race/ethnicity, parent's level of education, school location, and region were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online. With a pure probability sample of 1,579, one could say with a ninety-five percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/-3 percentage points. Sampling error for sub samples would be higher and would vary. However that does not take other sources of error into account. This survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no theoretical sampling error can be calculated.