Addicts use their smartphones 5,427 times a day

For almost a decade, humans have been wandering the planet with a small computer in their hands. And to see just how attached we are to our smartphones, researchers explored in-the-moment behaviours of 94 Android users. The study found that the average person swipes, taps and pinches their display about 2,617 times a day, for a grand total of one million times per year.

Although one million times in a year sounds like a great deal of touching, the study also discovered an elite 10 percent that presses the display 5,427 times throughout the day, which equals two million times over the course of a year.

And it seems like these numbers will be not be decreasing anytime soon.

'I don't think we are close to reaching 'peak digital,' Michael Winnick, founder and CEO of dscout, told DailyMail.com.

'Interaction styles may change and this creates an opportunity for new forms, like voice, augmented reality, and VR. So the form will likely change.'

'If we were betting on it, we'd say the amount of time we are spending through digitally mediated products won't go down.

'We just might not be using our fingers as much.'

Dscout, a Chicago-based research firm and software producer, conducted this study by capturing and analyzing in-the-moment behaviors at scale of 94 Android users.

Following recruitment for the study, the firm built a supplementary app to track every swipe, tap and pinch from each user over 24 hours for a five day period.

The data revealed users spend about 2.42 hours a day touching the smartphone display and 3.75 hours for the power users – this includes everything from texting, swiping on Tinder, turning Kindle pages and scrolling in Facebook.

'We aren't necessarily glued to our phones for long periods. It's more like 76 reps a day with a five-ounce dumbbell,' shared Winnick, found in a recent post.

Full Report