Are you a slave to your smartphone? you are not alone

Can you identify yourself or any of your friends with the following statements?

• My smartphone is always with me and always on
• I have used foursquare/twitter/facebook while on the toilet
• I check my phone while at the cinema
• I tweet/text/check-in during meals
• I have emailed/texted/tweeted/facebook’ed a friend while they were sitting next to me
• Do you have smartphone withdrawls if you haven’t checked your phone in 5 minutes

If you can answer yes to two or more of these statement then you are officially a slave to your smartphone, but don’t worry, you are not alone.

Recent reports by Ofcom have confirmed that the UK is smartphone obsessed, with 47% of teenagers and 27% of adults now own a smartphone. Amongst teenagers over 60% said they are obsessed with their smartphone, impacting amongst other on book reading.

34% of teenagers said they had used their phones during a meal, and about half had used or answered the phone while in the bathroom or toilet. Quite interestingly adults are not much better either.

While adults seem to prefer the iPhone 4 for their smartphone addiction (32%), more than 37% of teenagers prefer a Blackberry. The success of the Blackberry amongst the younger generation could be down to cost, as their handsets tend to be lower priced and available for free on lower tariffs compared to the iPhone.

Sounds like we will soon need a SAA (Smartphone Addicts Anonymous).

PS! check out this video. I know its a Blackberry advert but it is really funny, and scary at the same time

[source: BBC image: Crackberry]