Addicted To Your Phone?

This is you:  you have a problem standing in line at the grocery store.  You need to check your account balance to make sure you're not about to go into the red.  You pull out your smart phone and check your balance.  No Problem.

You, just like millions of Americans, are finding it more and more difficult to live without those little devices and a new study from the Pew Research Center proves it.  Here are some of the more interesting things they found in a new nation-wide study:

• Half of all adult cell owners (51%) had used their phone at least once to get information they needed right away. One quarter (27%) said that they experienced a situation in the previous month in which they had trouble doing something because they did not have their phone at hand.
• Cell phones can help stave off boredom – 42% of cell owners used their phone for entertainment when they were bored.
• With advantages comes frustration – 20% of cell owners experienced frustration because their phone was taking too long to download something; 16% had difficulty reading something on their phone because the screen was too small; and 10% had difficulty entering a lot of text on their phone.
• Cell phones can help prevent unwanted personal interactions – 13% of cell owners pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the people around them.

Text messaging and picture taking continue to top the list of ways that Americans use their mobile phones—three quarters of all cell owners (73%) use their phones for each of these purposes. Other relatively common activities include sending photos or videos to others (54% of cell owners do this) as well as accessing the internet (44%).