Are You Addicted? Survey Finds 40% Of Smartphone Use Is Compulsive

LONDON — Do you find yourself reaching for your smartphone and turning it on for no apparent reason? A new survey found that British consumers admit to doing this thousands of times per year — accounting for about 40 percent of the times they unlocked their phones.

Researchers at Casumo, an online casino company, surveyed 2,000 smartphone users across the United Kingdom, hoping to see how much of their device checking could be attributed to being creatures of habit.

Finding that the average user unlocked their phone more than 10,000 times a year — or about 28 times a day — the researchers identified about 4,000 phone interactions a year as being “compulsive” (i.e., the owner had no particular act in mind when engaging).

Equally eye-opening was the finding that the highest decile of smartphone enthusiasts — or the top ten percent of users — opened their device 60-plus times every 24 hours.

Still, only a third of respondents earnestly believed they were addicted to checking their device.

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