We’re All Addicted to Our Phones

American Gen Zers unlock their phones almost eighty times per day. And they aren’t alone. Our phones have become essential extensions of our identities, and that attachment formed remarkably quickly. The iPhone was released in 2007, and about half of American adults had a smartphone by 2012. Fast-forward less than a decade, and almost half of Americans feel some degree of anxiety when they don’t have their phone. A 2020 study found that 96% of Gen Z Americans won’t go to the bathroom without their phone. Daily phone use has been increasing by 25% per year since 2010. Today, the average American spends 4 hours and 23 minutes of every day using their mobile device.

We eat and drink three or four times a day. Most adults laugh seventeen times per day. A study of over 26,000 people from 1989 to 2014 found that the average adult has sex about once a week. That means, in an average week, a young adult might have sex once, laugh about 120 times, and unlock their phone more than 550 times.

Technology has never been so integrated into the human experience.

45

Average Unlocks per Day Among U.S. Smartphone Users

2018

Source: Verto Analytics via Statista.