The perils of smartphones: 9 years on the phone!

How much time do you spend scrolling on a smartphone?

Published by Steve Foreman on Nov 21, 2020

9 years, that’s how long the average person spends on their mobile phone during their lifetime. To put that into perspective that’s over 76,500 hours! The study carried out by WhistleOut, interviewed 1,000 Americans of all ages, to understand how much we spent on our smartphones. I’m sure you’ll agree that this is a staggering amount of time and don’t think it’s just the younger generation that spends so much time on their phones, we Boldies are guilty of it too.

Millennials are the most prolific, averaging 3.7 hours per day. Those born between 1965 and 1980 averaged 3 hours and those born between 1946 and 1964 averaged 2.5 hours per day, that’s more than 10 percent of the day. If you take that as a percentage of your waking hours, we spend a huge amount of time staring at our phone screens.

Technology has moved on in leaps and bounds over the last few decades, and most of it for the better. Your mobile phone is able to do far more than your average home computer of ten years ago. However, being so accessible does have its downsides. It can be hard to switch off, if you’re not careful you can be constantly available for work, or just lose an hour by checking your social media accounts or surfing the web.

It can also cause terrible posture; we are not made to be hunched over phone screens for extended periods of time. It can put stress on your spine, shoulder muscles and your neck. This can cause headaches and potentially numbness and tingling down your arms. All that scrolling can also cause issues with your hands as they are in a very unnatural position when using a phone.

These issues can be minimized by taking regular breaks from your phone, every 15-20 minutes is recommended.
Yes, smart phones are great but don’t let it take over your life. Try to make sure you live in the moment and connect with life around you, don’t be constantly distracted by your phone. Even better, turn it off occasionally, as we know, there was a world before mobile phones and we all survived.

As Boldies, there are far more interesting things to be doing instead of staring at your phone screen (for 2.5 hours a day!)