13% of Cellphone Users Fake Calls to Avoid People

Ever pretend you're talking on the phone to avoid interacting with people around you? You’re not alone.

About 13 percent of mobile phone users are guilty of conducting fake conversations to get out of real conversations, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

In a nationally representative telephone survey of nearly 2,300 American adults — with a margin of error of 2 percent — people confessed that they used their mobile devices as a way to show they don’t want to be bothered.
The report found that American adults also rely on cellphones when they are bored, with about 42 percent turning to their devices for entertainment during downtime.

Text messaging and picture-taking continue to top the list of ways that Americans use mobile phones — three-quarters of all cell owners (73 percent) use their phones for each of these purposes. Other relatively common activities include sending photos or videos to others (54 percent of cell owners do this), as well as accessing the Internet (44 percent).

Although 83 percent of American adults own some kind of cellphone, one-third of American adults (35 percent) own a smartphone, the report noted.