Stunning stat: 91% of U.S. adults own cell phones

Also amazing: 56 percent own smart phones. That's according to Pew Research Center, which has been monitoring cell phone ownership for nearly a decade. Pew says the cell phone is the most quickly adopted consumer technology in the history of the world, though there are some groups being left out, including people 65 and older, those who didn't attend college, and those living in households earning less than $30,000. Many of the respondents say they constantly check their phones, keep them by their bedside, and think their phones make life better because they connect with pals more often. From Pew:

The Pew Research Center began asking separately about cell phone ownership in late 2004 and began to ask about the special ways people might be using their phones in March 2006. At the time, it was clear that texting was becoming popular (35% of cell owners were texters then). Moreover, it was evident that people were using their cell phones under different circumstances and for different purposes than the way they used their landline phones. n that early research we uncovered a lot of the tensions that mobile connectivity has introduced to modern life: We found that 74% of cell owners had used the phone to get help in an emergency and that 86% of cell owners were irritated at least occasionally by loud cell users in public places. In our early work we saw that 41% of cell owners said they were beginning to use their phones to fill in free time with phone calls while they were traveling or waiting for something. Some 28% of cell owners at that time admitted that they didn't drive as safely as they should. And 22% reported that "too many" people were trying to get in touch with them.