Does it really matter who is dating who this week or who is cooking who on reality TV?
Why do we devour articles about the
latest Kardashian carry on or the most recent celebrity divorce scandal and who is checking us out of LinkedIn?
If we were no longer as concerned about what
Donald’s latest indiscretion is or what Stormy was wearing to dinner with her
lawyer, would our need to forgo meaningful social interactions in favour of opening
an App and staring at our phone be so great?
Or are such suggestions unfair?
If asked, most of us will admit to using our
their phone 30 or 40 times a day.
A study in 2013 revealed the number may be closer to 150 times a day.
In 2016, research “nerds” DSCOUT decided
to review this and enrolled 100 people for 5 days of monitoring. Several
participants failed to participate for the full period and several other interruptions
resulted in the survey being limited to 94 people over 4.5 days.
DSCOUT discovered that across the group of 94, the
average daily number of “clicks, swipes or taps” is 2617.
Staggeringly, the heaviest user in the
group clicked, swiped or tapped their phone 5427 times per
day.
On average, there were 78 new sessions
per user, per day.
There were certainly peak periods, notably
at 7 am each morning however, 87% of participants accessed their phone at least once between
midnight and 5 am and 11% at 3 am each day.
It would be easy, but unfair to conclude that such
high levels of usage to be a negative.
In reality, much of our phone usage
replaces other activities previously performed in an analogue format.
We regularly hear comment about the
number of people on a train or bus who have eyes fixated on their phones. In previous
decades, the same eyes would have been hidden behind a newspaper, magazine or
hard copy book.
The magazines being read contained the
latest celebrity news and scandals. Our newspapers were generally a little more
broadly informative however contained the same information we now obtain via
our phone screen.
On my phone, every time I go to a new article
I click/tap/swipe at least once whereas if reading a newspaper, I simply shift
my gaze to the next article on the page or turn the page.
If I need to find out how to get somewhere
I haven’t been before, I click, swipe or tap on a mapping App whereas in
another era, I would have been looking the address up in a street directory and turning several pages.
I regularly use my phone to listen to radio
programs. In effect, I no longer need a radio particularly as I can “Bluetooth”
to my car or portable speaker, simply by clicking, swiping or taping my phone.
Like many, I probably overuse social
media and waste a good deal of time on meaningless phone-based activity.
However, it is all too easy to dismiss
our so-called phone addiction or dependence as being mindless and numbing
without also using the same words, to describe our past use of paper-based
publications, hard copy maps, transistor radios and many other activities we
now use our phones for.
I guess the difference is, no one knew
what I was reading in the newspaper or magazine whereas now, I not only have no
idea who knows, I assume everyone does.
By way of example, I know that
approximately 40% of you are reading this blog by way of your phone and I
thank you for doing so.
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