Stop for a minute and think about just how many times a day you find yourself glancing down at the mini world in your hand, your smartphone. If you were to actually sit down and try to count the times you’ve picked up your phone, whether it was to check for a text (that you probably didn’t get because you didn’t reply in the first place) or just to check the time; you’d probably come up with a ridiculous number. We actually use our phones a lot more than we would like to admit. In fact, I bet you’ve already checked your phone five times before you even got out of bed this morning.

Take a minute out of your day and just google “average time spent on a smartphone,” but wait before you do, I bet you’re on a smartphone right now, gotcha!

Most people will say that they don’t even use their phones “that much,” when in fact, we use our phone twice the amount of times that we think that we do. When I’m trying to do everyday tasks I find myself picking up my phone every couple of minutes. In fact even when I’m supposed to be doing something productive, like studying, I still find myself glancing down to check my phone.

Phones were originally created in order to be a new form of communication over prolonged distances, however in today’s world they are so much more. Not only can you talk to another person, you can find information, listen to music, pay for things (bills), deposit/withdraw money, plan a trip, watch videos, make videos and of course (the most popular feature) take pictures.

The way people are becoming more and more dependent on their smartphones, the less “smart,” they’re becoming. I don’t mean that smartphones don’t help people retain knowledge, but that they are taking away our “social,” aspect and our sense of community. As humans, we are social beings, which means that we require communication and interactions with one another as a way to function and survive. By relying on smartphones we are taking away the physical intimacy from being with people. The only thing that separates us from computers are our emotional connections. By relying on our smartphones we are taking away from the face-to-face interactions that computers do not need. There have even been times where I’ve sat down with family and friends to eat a meal and everyone is staring at their smartphones. Since we all spend so much time on our phone I was interested in just how much time I spend on mine.

Then I came up with an idea, I decided to search the app store for an app which would help me to estimate just how much time I spend on my phone. I was able to find the app Moment, which tracks how much time I spend on my phone as well as the number of times I pick my phone up. The app also includes additional features (that have to be purchased) which allow you to track your family’s usage, allow you to set limits on how much you use your phone, set reminders to stop using your phone, and includes a “Bootcamp” feature which can help you to control the amount of time spent on your phone. It amazed me that after the first day I had reached a total of six hours on my phone (sporadic pickups). After having this app downloaded on my phone for the work week [5 days] I had racked up a total of 32+ hours on my phone. That’s about a quarter of my week spent on my phone alone. As well as an average of seven pickups in an hour which added up to 840 pickups in a week!

After doing this, I came to one conclusion: we do not need to get rid of smartphones or stop using them, but what we can do is begin to check our limits in order to deter our attention away from them [smartphones] in order to not destroy the emotional bonds that we have with one another. All things can be good in moderation, why not make the use of smartphones one of those things?

Why not check your own time spent on your phone? Do you think you spend as much time as I do?