Allmost all smartphones have a built-in GPS receiver to enable location tracking, but only 55% of U.S. smartphone owners have used their phone's GPS to help get local directions.
According to new research
from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. According to new report 35% of U.S. mobile phones are smartphones, and the survey told that about 28% of U.S. adults actively use location-enabled services on their phones.
Pew examined three basic types of location-augmented activities: general location based services, such as getting maps, directions, or recommendations based on your current location; geosocial services, such as Foursquare or Gowalla, where you "check in" to a location; and social media that allow you to automatically add your location when you post a status update, such as Twitter or Facebook.
According to Pew, about 28% of U.S. adults do at least one of these activities either online or using their mobile phones -- and many users do several of them."
Earlier Pew Research found that U.S. Hispanics are especially likely to do advanced activities with their smartphones. This new study shows that for locative services, Hispanics are both ahead of and behind this curve.
Pew found that 25% of U.S. Hispanics use geosocial services such as Foursquare -- a strong lead compared to 17% of blacks and 7% of whites. But for getting local directions and recommendations, whites were in the lead (59%), compared to 53% of blacks and 44% of Hispanics.
Social media that rely on "check-ins" such as Foursquare and Gowalla still are not hugely popular. According to Pew, only 12% of smartphone owners have used such services.
Pew also found that 14% of people who use social media have set up their account to automatically include their location in their posts. Considerably about (19%) men do this than women (10%). And amazingly, a slightly higher percentage of social media users aged 50 to 65 (16%) do this than those aged 18 to 29 (13%).
Who is most likely to automatically geotag their social media updates? Hispanics (31%), people with an annual household income of less than $30,000 (25%), and people whose education went no further than high school (23%).
