Second to clothing, teens claim that a mobile phone tells the most about a person's social standing or popularity.

The finding, from a national survey titled "Teenagers: A Generation Unplugged," shows that mobile phones are held in even higher esteem than jewelry, watches and shoes.

What this tells marketers is that this growing wireless segment of teens views its mobile phones as more than just an accessory.

Harris Interactive conducted this survey of more than 2,000 teens nationwide for the CTIA: The Wireless Association.

The study showed that mobile phones are increasingly becoming a social necessity among teens. Fifty-seven percent of the survey respondents viewed the mobile phone as key to their life.

Nearly four out of five teens, or 17 million, carry a mobile phone, which is a 40 percent increase from 2004.

Given that statistic, Harris was not surprised that 57 percent of teens credit mobility for improving their quality of life.

More than half of the respondents said the mobile phone has become a new form of entertainment and one-third of teens currently play games on their phone.

Eighty percent of the respondents also said that the mobile phone offered a sense of security while on the go. This was further confirmed when 79 percent said they used the phone when needing a ride, 51 percent to get information and 35 percent to just help someone in trouble.

Interestingly, while only 18 percent of teens care to identify the location of their family and friends through the mobile phone, 36 percent hated the idea of a mobile phone feature allowing others to know their exact location.

The Harris study also confirmed what is obvious: texting is replacing talking among teens.

The respondents said they spend as much time talking as they do texting each month.

In fact, the feature is so important that if texting were no longer an option, 47 percent of the responding teens said their social life would end or be worsened. This is especially among teen girls, 54 percent compared with 40 percent for teen boys.

The surveyed teens said texting offers several advantages, including multitasking, speed, the option to avoid talking and because it was fun, all in that order.

Harris said that with more than 1 billion text messages sent daily, it is not surprising that 42 percent of the responding teens said they can even text blindfolded.

The respondents told Harris they had a wish list of what they would change about devices and services.

For example, 80 percent said they wanted guaranteed secured data access to only the user and 66 percent wanted to provide accessibility to personal health records.

Also, 66 percent wanted the mobile phone to present opportunities to be educated anywhere in the world and 63percent wanted to bring users closer to global issues affecting the teens' world.

The Harris survey found that the teens' ideal future mobile device would feature five applications: phone, MP3 player, GPS, laptop computer and video player.