Young teens in U.S. use mobile devices for homework

When your son or daughter says they are doing homework on the phone, they may be telling the truth.

More than a third of tweens and young teenagers in the United States said they are using smartphones to do homework, according to a survey, with Hispanic students using them at a higher rate than African-Americans or whites. "These middle school students are using mobile devices for more than entertainment purposes," said Kristi Sarmiento, research director at TRU. "They have grown up with this technology." Smartphones were used at home for schoolwork by 39 percent of 11 to 14 year olds, 31 percent of those surveyed said they did assignments on a tablet while nearly 65 percent used laptops, the poll by research firm TRU, which specializes in data on tweens, teens and twenty-somethings, showed.