Smart phones as we now know them have only existed since 2007, but we’re already addicted. Data recently released by mobile app maker Locket shows the average smart phone user unlocks their phone 110 times a day. Assuming eight hours of sleep, we unlock our phones roughly once every eight minutes. Any other action performed with that frequency would be considered compulsive.
Locket’s app pays users in exchange for advertisements placed on their home screens. As such, the company has phone unlock and various other data for each of its 150,000-plus users. Looking at their data as a whole shows a culture which can’t seem to put down its phone. Some users of the Locket app unlock their phones over 900 times daily.
Locket’s data shows phone users are most active between 5 and 8 p.m., with 75 percent of Locket users actively swiping. Even during non-peak hours—3 a.m. to 5 a.m.—Locket says 24 percent of their users are swiping their phones four times an hour.
It should be said Locket’s data is less than scientific. Some could argue Locket users, being paid for the advertisements on their home screens, have monetary incentive to unlock their phones. It should also be noted that other, more scientific studies report more extreme phone usage. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’s annual Internet Trends report indicates the average smart phone user unlocks their phone 150 times daily.
No matter the data source, the trend is undeniable. In this age of Twitter, Vine, Instagram and Facebook, a person’s social interaction, in some way, depends on the activity of their phone. We might as well face it: we’re addicted to phones.
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