Trends on Tuesday: Have You Cut the Cord?

First, it was party lines. Then, it was the rotary phone. Now, two-in-five (41%) U.S. households have officially said goodbye to landlines, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s National Center for Health Statistics.

If you have been keeping up with previous mobile trends, you won’t be surprised to learn who has decided to cut the telephone cord:

• An estimated 39.1% of adults and 47.1% of children lived in wireless-only households in 2013.
• Nearly two-thirds (65.7%) of 25- to 29-year-olds, are living the wireless-only lifestyle, followed by 59.7% of 30- to 34-year-olds, and 53% of 18- to 24-year-olds.
• A majority (56.2%) of poor households have no landline service.
• An estimated 53.1% of Hispanic households live with no landline phone.
• Even region had an impact on the likelihood that a household would be wireless-only. Only a quarter (24.9%) of Northeasterners reported that they lived with no landline phone, versus more than 40% of households in the Midwest, West and South.

Hopefully, reading these stats made two words come to mind—mobile first. With the number of mobile-only households continuing to rise from year to year, optimizing your agency’s site for the mobile user experience just makes sense. Check out the Mobile Webinar Series: Mobile First for resources to help your agency adopt a mobile first approach to Web design.