Brits Check Their Smartphones 1.1 BILLION Times A Day

The sheer scale of our love affair with our mobile devices has been illustrated by a new survey which uncovers the amount of time that UK consumers spend glued to their screens.

A study by Deloitte has found that Britain’s smartphone owners look at their devices nearly 1.1 billion times a day, the equivalent of 400 billion times a year.

And total smartphone market penetration is coming ever closer, the company found, as 76 percent of UK adults now own a smartphone, an increase of six percentage points from the previous year and 14 percent higher than in 2013.

Ever-present

The results come from Deloitte’s fifth annual Mobile Consumer report, which looked at the mobile usage habits of over 4,000 UK consumers as part of a global survey of 49,000, and found they are rapidly becoming an integral part of many people’s daily lives.

Overall, a third (36 percent) of smartphone owners said that they looked at their device more than 25 times a day, with a sixth (16 percent) of respondents look at their smartphone more than 50 times.

Mobile devices now also top and tail many people’s day, with one in ten (12 percent) smartphone owners reaches for their device immediately upon waking; more than half (55 percent) do so within 15 minutes of waking up, before more than a quarter (28 percent) check their phones within the five minutes before going to sleep each night.

Quick pay

Mobile payments have been one of the key factors behind the recent surge in device usage, as more and more of us use smartphones to pay for goods and services. According to Deloitte’s research, there has been a significant increase in the number of UK adults who have made mobile payments in the year to May 2015, rising from three to 13 percent of respondents. However, just one percent use their phones to make payments via their mobile phone on a daily basis.

However there are still some major barriers to overcome in order to get most consumers using mobile payments. The most common reason that UK adults gave for not using their phone to make a payment was one of security – cited by 42 percent of respondents. This was followed by “I don’t see the benefits from using this” (35 percent), and users lacking the necessary feature or app on their phone (22 percent).

“The modern, touchscreen-based smartphone is less than a decade old, but it is more intertwined with our lives than ever,” said Paul Lee, head of technology, media and telecommunications research at Deloitte. “Constant technological improvements are allowing us to delegate more and more tasks to our phones, from ordering taxis to browsing catalogues and paying for a meal.”

What do you know about the smartphones of 2015 so far? Try our quiz!