Adults and teens share similar calling patterns, except adults call more often just to say hello and teens call more to check in and report their whereabouts

Adults and teens are much more alike in their use of voice calling from a mobile phone than their text messaging behavior might suggest. The largest segment of each group – 58% of teens and 44% of adults – make and receive 1 to 5 mobile phone calls a day.  However, cell-owning adults are more likely than teens to initiate and receive more than 20 calls a day, with 12% of adults making that many calls, compared with just 6% of teens. Consistent with these findings, teens and adults make and receive a median of 5 calls a day, while the mean number of teen calls is 10.7 and the mean for adults is 13.1.

Overall, adults and teens are just as likely to have used their mobile phone to call someone just to say hello and chat, though adults are a bit more likely to do this more frequently, with 26% of cell-owning adults calling to say hello several times a day, compared with 18% of teens with cell phones.  Adults and teens show similar calling patterns when they use the phone to have long conversations on personal topics and when they use their cell phone to coordinate an in-person meeting.

Teens are more likely to use the phone to call and report where they are or check someone else’s location; 90% of teens have done so as have 81% of adults. Teens are also more likely to use the phone for school work than adults are to use their phone for professional work. However, of those adults that do use their phone to make and receive calls for work, they use it for that purpose more frequently than teens use their handsets for school.