In the area you live in, how old are teens when the majority have (or seem to have) their own cell phones?

When answering the question, can you also specify if the area you live in is rural, agricultural, suburban, affluent, whatever?

I am curious about this because I live in a relatively affluent area where all teens have cell phones and can be seen texting 24/7. Yesterday, I went to a fair in upstate NY (about an hour from where I live) and I saw almost no teens on phones or texting.

Toward the end, I was near the exit and I heard a kid ask another kid if he knew where someone’s dad was, and he said he was getting a ride from him and needed to find him. I was thinking that in the area where I live, he’d have a cell phone and be calling or texting the friend to meet up. That combined with the fact that I saw almost no teens texting or talking on cells made me think that in that area, most probably don’t have them. It was an area that is largely agricultural, with low per capita income.

It made me curious about this topic, and I looked up the per capita income in my county (approx. $63,000 which is the 8th highest in the country) and the per capita income in the county where the fair was (Columbia County NY, per capita income approx $22,000 = big diff between counties).