Americans are so obsessed with their phones, they are sleeping with them and many are compulsively checking their devices multiple times an hour -- perhaps you’re doing it right now.
- Always Connected. Fully 63 percent of Americans sleep with their phone in or next to their bed. This jumps to 73 percent among millennials.
- Notification Overload. Though 28 percent feel “annoyed”, and 22 percent get “anxious” when they see or hear notifications on their phone, 65 percent of people say smartphones have made their quality of life better. Of those 31 percent who wrote in answers about how notifications make them feel, most were simply “curious”.
- Save Us From Ourselves. As more people recognize the deleterious effects on well-being that tech addition and social media play, majorities would like to see gov’t intervene with some form of regulation (59 percent support regs---yes, even Republicans at 59 percent)
- Face to Face is Best. These days, most people (42 percent) would prefer to communicate in-person. The next best way to connect is no surprise-- texting (21 percent), followed by a lowly 16 percent who would prefer picking up the phone to chat.
- Computers in your Pocket Win Out. Compared to other tech, smartphones are the hardest for most people to live without (51 percent). Not surprisingly, millennials have the greatest shares who can’t do without their phones (67 percent). Nearly identical shares of these young people see social media as a time-suck and 27 percent feel worse about themselves after spending time on social.
Read more about our polling methodology here.
Click through all the results in the interactive toplines below:
Sample question text:
Where do you typically keep your phone when you go to sleep at night?
Have smartphones changed your quality of life for the better, for worse, or have they not really changed it much?
When you hear or see a new notifications on your phone, you feel… [Select all that apply]
On average, how many times would you say you check your phone each hour?
Which of the following apps or websites has the potential to do the greatest harm to children?
*consumers
