Our cell phones have become an essential part of us. We use them incessantly to send and receive messages, check our email, follow the latest tweetstorm, make and track purchases, or simply play a game.  Hardcore users devote up to 12 hours every day to their smartphones. There’s no indication that spending that much time staring at a small screen improves our productivity or mental health.

What are the numbers?

• There are over 3 billion smartphone users in the world.
• Worldwide, people devote an average of 3.25 hours a day to their phones.
• Americans spend around 5.4 hours a day using theirs.
• Millennials, 5.7 hours a day; baby boomers, 5 hours.
• People check their phones an average of 58 times a day (more than half of those occur during working hours).
• Millennials spend 48 minutes each day texting, compared to Boomers’ 30 minutes.
• 7% of mobile phone sessions are shorter than two minutes.

When you bought your first smartphone, did you ever imagine you would spend so much time looking at it?

According to Seth Godin, “if we wasted money the way we waste time, we’d all be bankrupt.”