If you’ve been looking around and listening closely, you may have gotten the impression that nearly everyone, especially among very young adults, is constantly on their smartphone or iPhone 16 hours a day. According to data collected by ReportLinker, that perception (while exaggerated) isn’t all that far from the truth.
Apple’s iPhone, which sparked the creation of the modern smartphone, was first introduced to the marketplace in 2007. Already by the beginning of 2016, Americans were checking their smartphones a grand total of eight billion (yes, that’s “billion”) times per day.
ReportLinker has uncovered data to suggest that nearly half of of all American adults (46%) check their smartphones first thing upon waking up in the morning, and among Millennials it’s nearly two-thirds (66%). Another 28% of American adults use their smartphones during breakfast. Close to 10% even wake up in the night after going to bed and check their smartphones.
What’s more, the very first thing that the majority of US smartphone owners do when they first check their phones isn’t to make a phone call or even exchange text messages. No, it’s read and write emails or engage with social media. However, 63% do use their smartphones foremostly for either phone calls or texting.
Americans’ phones have become their cameras, too. Fifteen percent of smartphone users say that their most-used app is the one synced with their phone’s camera.
When you’ve got more computing power in your pocket than NASA had in all of its halls of supercomputers in the 1960s, it’s easy to be tempted to utilize it as often as possible, especially when the cost of doing so stays fairly low. Mobile data usage in the US is anticipated to continue rising steadily after falling off between 2014 and 2015 (because of tablets and “hot spots”), and wireless service providers’ revenues are anticipated to do the same.
It’s a wonderful time to be in the smartphone business in the US.
