Some young people spend over 7 hours a day on smartphone in UK: Ofcom study

Shutterstock

• The UK’s media regulator recently found that around 1 out of 5 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 use their phones for over 7 hours a day.
• That’s 49 hours of phone time per week. 

Sobering new statistics from Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator, suggest that some young people use their phone for over 7 hours a day — a huge portion of waking hours. 

About a fifth of young people between 16 and 24 spend more than seven hours online. That works out to two full 24-hour days per week, according to the Telegraph, which published parts of the Ofcom results. 

Some other surprising stats from the Telegraph article:

• Britons check their smartphones every 12 minutes on average. 
• More than half of younger users say their devices interrupt face-to-face conversations with families and friends.
• Young women between 16-24 years old appear to be more addicted to their smartphones than young men, averaging four hours a day, versus three for the same age group for men. 

Smartphone overuse has become a hot-button issue around the world. Apple, which makes the iPhone, is including new usage limitation features in the next version of its software, iOS 12. 

Google has also included so-called “digital wellness” features in Android P, which will likely become available for more phones over the next year.

These software features allow users to limit time in specific apps and monitor the amount of time they are using their phones. 

More details from the Ofcom study are available at the Telegraph.