Smartphone addiction: Why it’s worrying the typical user touches their phone 2,617 times a day

By 2030, the World Health Organisation has forecast depression and anxiety will be the number one healthcare burden, costing upwards of US$1 trillion a year in many countries.

Already, studies are revealing a correlation between anxiety, depression and smartphone use — not to mention what smartphones could be doing to our neurochemical balance.

The urge to seek distraction

People call it ‘smartphone addiction’, but maybe our urge to check our mobiles or screens is also a product of affluenza. How so? Because when humans’ basic needs are largely taken care of, the urge to seek distraction is higher, because people get bored!

Technology and mass production of goods and services have widened the ‘bored effect’, so now most people have toys to play with, and therefore more means to fidget and see what the apes in other packs are up to.

How often do we touch our phones?

An interesting US survey by KDA Engineering, revealed while 60% of people think they touch their phone about 100 times or less each day, in fact, a typical user taps, touches or wipes their phone 2617 times each day! Read more

Eve Ash - SmartCompany - 9 October 2018