You may be thinking, “I certainly hope not.” But far too many people are. As a recent study pointed out, “That little screen is always nearby – in our pocket or backpack, on the nightstand or under the pillow – beckoning us.” The average person touches their phone 2,617 times per day. That is nearly 1 million times per year. For the heaviest users the average touches doubled to 5,427 times each day. And the average time spent on the cell phone each day in the U.S. is over 3 ½ hours – much more for heavy users.
Where do you think you fall in these statistics? Most people individuals greatly underestimate their cell phone usage. But there is help. There are numerous free apps that will track your usage for you. Yet, many will never download an app to give them that information because – well – they don’t want to know. In the study, which included over 100,000 participants, when confronted with the number of times they touched their cell phone each day – their initial response was shock – for about 5 seconds. Then it changed to a “meh” no big deal reaction.
The reality is that we are creating a society of people who: 1) don’t want to face the reality of how they are spending their time; 2) find much of their connection with humanity virtually; 3) have become addicted but are unwilling to examine what a central piece of their life that phone, in their never-ending hand-grasp, has become; and 4) are unaware, or don’t want to confront, how much time and brainpower are wasted on their phones that could have been better spent elsewhere.
The average device user spends 53 ¼ days of the year (when allowing for sleep, it is closer to 80 days – or nearly 22% of their awake hours on their phones).
These studies are leading me to re-evaluate my own device usage. I believe that God put us here for a lot more useful and important activities than spending 22% of our lives on our phones. If you want to live life more fully, perhaps you may want to evaluate too.