Only the elderly use landlines

According to Associated Press, more than a quarter of young US adults have only cell phones and don't bother with phones that require plugging in.

The portion of adults with only mobile phones grew by more than two percentage points last year to nearly 12 percent. A quarter of people aged 18 -24 and 29 percent of those aged 25 - 29 only used mobiles. Only two percent of those older than 65 only used mobiles.

On of the things that AP noted was that the trend away from landlines affects those pollsters who rely heavily on random calls to households with wired telephones. So when you hear the results of a poll which suggest that 90 percent of people think Margaret Thatcher should be canonised and 88 percent of people think that national service will solve all the nation's woe's you will know that it is based on a phone poll of landlines.

Still one advantage is that you are not bothered by pollsters asking you damn fool questions when you are watching Heroes or Dr Who. Although it does open the question about how these pollsters also got through to people without landlines.

More here. µ