Pew Research Center will call 75% cellphones for surveys in 2016

Pew Research Center will increase the percentage of respondents interviewed on cellphones from 65% to 75% in most of its 2016 telephone surveys. We’re making this change to ensure our survey samples properly represent the now roughly half (47%) of U.S. adults whose only phone is a cellphone. Nine-in-ten Americans have a cellphone, and the share of adults who are cellphone-only has steadily increased since 2004, the year the government began tracking the size of this group. To keep pace with the public’s changing habits and lifestyle, we have increased the percentage of respondents interviewed by cellphone nearly every year since 2009. Despite the prominence of cellphones in public opinion polling, many outside the field are still unclear what role these devices play in surveys.