Let’s not be used: Soaring mobile phone usage

Many of us imagine or at least hope, no matter how desperately, that we are independently-minded individuals. We hope that we reach our decisions without being swayed by the seductions of marketeers, open or subliminal. However, today’s Deloitte Mobile Consumer Survey on mobile phone usage suggests most of us have embraced mobile phones, especially smartphones, with great enthusiasm — so much so that half of us think we use our mobile phones too often.

The report recorded that the 3m of us who use a smartphone check it around 57 times a day. If you factor in eight hours sleep in every 24 hours that means we check our phones around every 20 minutes or so. This suggests a spaniel-like need for attention or at least a kind of tech-driven affirmation that we are part of something beyond our everyday.