US adults check their phones nearly four times more often than they did in 2019, according to new research

The personal device repair and replacement service group Asurion's 2019 research yielded conclusions that the average US adult survey respondent checked their phones 96 times per day, for a frequency of once about every 10 minutes. Well, a follow-up study has now been done, and the results are striking.

Asurion claims to have found that individual smartphone-checking behaviors in 2022 have increased to a whopping 352 times per day on average, or once every 2 minutes 43 seconds. These results were derived from a survey of 1,965 individuals, representative of the US adult population, from March 2 to 9 in 2022 by the market research group Dynata.

Of these respondents, 75% reported that they now regard their smartphone as "a necessity", with 60% noting that they would feel unable to go without the use of theirs for more than a single day. Oddly, when broken down by generation, those of the 'baby boomer' (75%) and Gen-X eras (76%) were more likely to regard the devices as essential compared to those classed as millennials (68%) or Gen-Z (71%).

Regardless of this variable, staying in contact with friends and family, whether through messaging, calls or social media, has risen to a top rationale for smartphone use, with 86% of people citing this kind of use-case in picking their device up so often. It was followed by an urge to use cameras at 61%; then by mobile banking (46%); gaming (40%) and buying things (31%).

Then again, the rise in smartphone use is often unavoidable for some. They have often been essential for contactless transactions or interactions during the pandemic, obviously; in addition, 67% of parents in this new survey reported that they would feel they had a day or less to replace their mobile device were it to become damaged beyond use.

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