Latinos More Likely to Use Smartphones to Look for Health, Education, and Job Content

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Latinos rely more on smartphones to access the Internet than whites, and are more likely to use their phones to look up health, education, and job content, according to a Pew Research Center report.

Smartphones are narrowing the so-called digital divide between racial/ethnic minorities and whites.

More Latinos (13%) and blacks (12%) are “smartphone-dependent,” with no home Internet connection, than whites (4%), and there are key differences how these groups use their smartphones.

According to the Pew report:

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Hispanic smartphone owners have used their phone in the past year to research a health condition, which is similar to the share for blacks. But whites are less likely to say they’ve used a phone to seek out health information.

Black and Hispanic smartphone owners are especially likely to use their phone for job-related activities – more than half (55%) used their phone in the past year to find job information, compared with about a third (37%) of whites. Many smartphone owners are also turning to mobile for applying for jobs, and again, blacks and Hispanics are more than twice as likely as white smartphone owners to use their phone to submit a job application.

Mobile education is a bigger part of the smartphone experience for Hispanics – 45% of Hispanic smartphone owners have used their mobile device to take an online class or look up educational content in the past year. That share is 32% for blacks and only 26% for whites.

“Although smartphone owners were not asked why they reach for their phone to access certain information or services, some advocacy groups suggest that mobile technology may help reduce minority health disparities by enabling access to information that would not necessarily be readily available to them,” according to the Pew report.