The Dodo bird was a flightless bird common to areas around the Indian Ocean. It was once a populous species (no doubt, given it’s relationship to pigeons), but alas, the Dodo has been extinct since the 17th century. Significantly, the extinction of the dodo is directly attributable to human activity, which contributes to the expression that something has “gone the way of the dodo” when it has become obsolete, and therefore ceases to exist.
Some day, in the not too distant future, we’re going to be talking about how landline telephones have gone the way of the dodo.
According to a recent report by the CDC, discussed on MRWeb, one quarter of US households are now “cellphone only.” Here are some stats:
“In the first 6 months of 2010, results indicated that more than one out of every four American homes (26.6%) did not have a landline, but had at least one wireless telephone – an increase of 2.1 percentage points since the second half of 2009.
In terms of demographics, adults working at a job or business (20.8%) and adults going to school (23.5%) were more likely to be living in ‘wireless-mostly’ households than were adults keeping house (14.5%) or with another employment status such as retired or unemployed (11.5%).
Meanwhile, adults living in poverty (11.0%) and adults living near poverty (12.6%) were less likely than higher income adults (20.8%) to be living in wireless-mostly households.
Nearly one of every six (15.9%) of American homes with a landline received all or almost all calls on wireless telephones.”
This is what we’re talking about when we discuss how important mobile devices are going to be to market research in the coming years (heck, even in the next 12 months!)
Just food for thought for now, with much more discussion to come. We want your thoughts though! How do you see this changing your approach to collecting data from respondents? Telephone surveys have been the gold standard for generations, but is that about to change?
Also, a related reminder for tomorrow:
Free Webinar: Mobile Research with SurveySwipe
When: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 11am Eastern (8am Pacific)