Smartphones help those without broadband get online, but don’t necessarily bridge the digital divide

Courts and regulators have increasingly seen high-speed Internet as a public utility that is as essential to Americans as electricity and water. But many Americans still do not have broadband at home, and some Americans have turned to mobile devices as their primary gateway to the Internet, according to Pew Research Center surveys. But whether smartphones are an adequate substitute is open to question.

Those who depend on their smartphones to go online encounter constraints with data caps and small screens, and the device is not their “go to” tool for personal learning at home. Instead, those with smartphones but not home broadband rely on a kind of “workaround ecosystem” that is a combination of using their mobile devices along with other resources such as computers and Wi-Fi available at public libraries. Some 13% of US adults are “smartphone only” Internet users – meaning they own a smartphone but do not have a home broadband subscription, according to our data from 2015. In 2013, that share was lower, at 8%. This group is more likely to be younger, lower-income, less educated, or black or Hispanic – the same groups that also have lower rates of home broadband adoption, suggesting that some are forgoing high-speed Internet service and depending on their phones instead.