Just 1 in 100 Amherst freshmen have landline phones

The suggestion that you could get by with just a cell phone was a novel idea only five or six years ago. Now, at least in the world of teens heading off to college, it's a trend that has finally and fully come to dominate the market. How so? Of 438 students who arrived at Amherst college this fall, only five have landline phones.

In this fascinating breakdown of the tech world at Amherst this year, the dearth of landlines is just one of the interesting data points. Equally dead: The desktop PC. Only 14 of the 438 students brought them. (The rest presumably have laptops.) 93 incoming students have iPhones or iPod Touches (aka "iTouches" in the linked article above). And all but six of the incoming students had joined the Class of 2012 Facebook group before the end of August. (And I bet that five of those six happen to have landlines.)

While Amherst juniors and seniors are more likely to own PCs, the freshmen and sophomores are more likely to have a Mac. Yet they're having more trouble with them: Help desk calls were up 11 percent in 2008 vs. 2007.

How'd they get to Amherst? 89 percent applied online this year, vs. just 33 percent in 2003. It's lucky those applications made it through, though: The campus receives 180,000 emails a day, 94 percent of which is spam.

Overall, some really cool and telling stats from Amherst's Peter Schilling. Check out his enlightening post by clicking here!