17 percent of Americans still can’t part with their landline

In a list of “technologies that would be very hard to give up” compiled by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 17 percent of Americans still listed the landline telephone. Compare that with the 10 percent who said “social media” was their must-have technology.

Yet, while the landline is still vital to more people than you may expect, its holding power is on a steady slide. Of current landline users, only 28 percent still count it as invaluable. That’s down from the 46 percent of hard-wired faithful who said the same in 2006. As wireless coverage gets more reliable, chances are those numbers will continue to fall. The figure about landlines is just one of many great nuggets about how Americans view and use technology in a report from the research firm, released ahead of next month’s 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web.