Dive Brief:

• Nearly three-quarters of all 12- to 17-year-olds will have smartphones by the end of the year, according to research firm eMarketer.

• Among 18- to 24-year-olds, that number is even higher, at nearly 95%.

• Both figures are up dramatically from three years ago.

Dive Insight:

In this game of phones (so to speak), the smartphones clearly are winning, and eMarketer expects the numbers to go even higher in the next four years.

By 2020, the research company anticipates nearly 93% of all 12- to 17-year-olds will have a smartphone, with over 99% of 18- to 24-year-olds having one. And another fascinating/potentially disturbing finding: Nearly half of all children under 11 will have a smartphone by 2020, the research indicates.

"But while parents still worry about what their teens will do with smartphones, it has become harder to deny their kids those devices as feature phones fade from the marketplace," eMarketer writes in an article about the research. "We have passed the tipping point at which it is more normal than otherwise for US teens to have a smartphone; about three-quarters of 12- to 17-year-olds will have one this year."

The adoption rate has been rapid. Just three years ago, less than half of 12- to 17-year-olds had smartphones, according to eMarketer estimates.