The Average American Spent 2.5 Months On Their Phone In 2024 (pcmag.com)
- Reference: 0175797161
- News link: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/12/30/2046257/the-average-american-spent-25-months-on-their-phone-in-2024
- Source link: https://www.pcmag.com/articles/yikes-the-average-american-spent-25-months-on-their-phone-in-2024
> There's a good chance that you're currently reading this article on your phone. If you're like one of the Americans [2]surveyed by Reviews.org , this is one of 205 times today that you'll be checking the device in your hand. To spare you opening the calculator app, that's about once every five minutes you are awake or two and a half full months out of your year.
>
> That's an alarming 42.3% rise from last year when the reviews company asked the same question and found people checked their phones 144 times per day. Some of the ways they spend those 205 moments are:
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> - 80.6% check their phones within the first 10 minutes of waking up
> - 65.7% use their phone on the toilet
> - 53.7% have texted someone in the same room
> - 38.1% use or look at their phone while on a date
> - 27% use or look at their phone while driving
>
> And, of course, there are those many, many times when people check their notifications, with 76% checking their phones within five minutes of receiving one. Millennials are the fastest on the draw, with 89.5% of them checking within 10 minutes. Gen Z and Gen X have found common ground (finally), with 84% of each group looking at notifications shortly after receiving them. Boomers and the Silent Generation aren't as anxious to see who is trying to reach them, with 69% and 53.3%, respectively, checking their notifications within a few minutes.
[1] https://www.pcmag.com/articles/yikes-the-average-american-spent-25-months-on-their-phone-in-2024
[2] https://www.reviews.org/internet-service/sign-out-of-social-challenge/
They probably spend a couple months' salary on em (Score:2)
too for the privilege of quality time wastage.
And ignores gender based phone usage skew (Score:4, Informative)
Misses that girls and women use significantly more phone time everyday than boys and men.
9th grade girls 59% report excessive phone use (would be ages 14 to 15)
9th grade boys 35.6 report excessive phone use (would be ages 14 to 15)
Table 1 from the paper
[1]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a... [nih.gov]
JMIR Pediatr Parent. 2021 Nov 22;4(4):e30889. doi: 10.2196/30889
Gender-Based Differences and Associated Factors Surrounding Excessive Smartphone Use Among Adolescents: Cross-sectional Study
Emma Claesdotter-Knutsson 1,, Frida André 2, Maria Fridh 3, Carl Delfin 2, Anders Hakansson 4, Martin Lindström 5
Editors: Sherif Badawy, Gunther Eysenbach
Reviewed by: Theoneste Ntalindwa, Eugenia Toki
PMCID: PMC8663478 PMID: 34813492
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8663478/
Wow (Score:3)
> "Americans check their phones an average of 205 times a day"
Wow. I must be a very abnormal person. Most days I check the phone only if I have a notification. And that maybe happens zero to once a day. I might use it occasionally to get a 2FA. Sometimes I will play Candy Crush, *silently* at lunch on the rare occasion I am alone.
I don't let my phone control me. There are zero social media accounts attached to it. And zero other things sending me notifications, except things that are actually important- a personal text message or a piece of equipment down. Otherwise, there is nothing as important as what I am actively doing, especially at work, that I want interruptions.
When I want to see what is going on out there, I pick MY time and sit at my nice desk at home with a big screen and real keyboard/mouse. I check and write Email, check news, look at Slashdot, watch some videos, perform research, etc.
I don't understand why this is apparently impossible for the vast majority of people.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm probably above the average count described, but that doesn't stop me from being productive, quite the contrary.
However, I am also not representative, because of my ADHD. The phone, to me, is actually a welcome change which helps me switch gears back and forth with minimum downtime.
That makes up for me... (Score:1)
I spent about 10 minutes a week on mine, and part of that was just the time spent unlocking it to reply to messages.
More than that... (Score:2)
But most of that is just reading on the Kindle App
The phone fits in my pocket, I have a Kindle Fire, but it is not as convenient.
Also the phone connects to my hearing aids, so I can listen to music (Musicolet app, I buy .MP3s from Amazon, but the Amazon music app sux) or watch prime video (when I am home).
Holy crap (Score:2)
I'd be surprised if I spent more than a dozen hours or so on my phone in all of 2024. I just don't use it much, no web browsing, almost no email, and not a lot of texting.
I do a lot of stuff on my PC, but my phone? Nah. (I do use a tablet a lot, but a phone just doesn't do it for me.)
I do salute anyone who can watch a movie or TV on their phone; for me it's like watching the show through the gun slit of a tank.
I can't be doing the math right... (Score:2)
That's FIVE hours a day? I bet most don't even do work for five hours in an 8 hour work day. No wonder everyone in the family needs to work to get by, no one is working.
In front of a computer I can believe, but a phone with a small screen and no real input device? Wow.
Addiction device working as intended.
We've reached the end of civilization (Score:2)
We're going out shitposting so much reality can't be differentiated from sarcasm, but at least full speed towards the apocalypse will make for some funny tiktoks.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, I can go days without checking my mobile phone and I often forget it home when I go out. As a matter of fact, most of the time I check it, it's to see if it needs recharging since leaving it always plugged in might wear out the battery faster I heard.
Re: (Score:2)
> since leaving it always plugged in might wear out the battery faster I heard.
That was true way back when, but these days the devices and chargers are much more intelligent and will usually just top the battery off with a trickle charge rather than force-charging it at full power.
These days I think you can leave most things like phones, tablets, laptops, etc plugged in indefinitely without harm.