As technology gets better and better, more and more people rely on it. Each year, companies release their newest products, or newest editions of a product, on the market. Newest toys and newer gadgets have consumers up on their toes every time a company announces a release of their latest device. Cellphones alone developed tremendously and increased in usage this past decade. These new cellphones are opening a door to communication like never before. According to the Nielsen 2010 Media Industry Fact Sheet there are over 223 million U.S. mobile phone users over the age of 13. More than 26% of households in the U.S. have only a wireless phone (Snider, 2011). As consumers continue to move to wireless, states are passing, or considering, laws to end the requirement that phone companies provide everyone landline service (Sylvain, 2012). The enormous increase in wire-less technology is pushing landline phones into obsolesce.
According to Gebeloff (2011), nearly 40 percent of all adults living in poverty use only cellphones, compared with about 21 percent of adults with higher incomes who use both cellphones and landlines. Cellphones have become more affordable, thus households in poverty, instead of having only landlines, switched to having cellphones only. Also, forty-seven percent of house renters were wireless-only, compared with 15 percent of owners.
Another factor is age. The older generation has a higher need for landlines, while the younger generation got so used to cellphones that when they move out of their parent’s house, they see no need to get a landline of their own. The younger generation of Americans is growing up in a society where cellphones, laptops, and Wi-Fi are as abundant as bread and water. This new dependency on technology prunes the younger generation to become more accustomed to it. A decade ago, children told their parents that they wanted