If you're like most Americans, you rely increasingly on your smartphone to check email, use social media, read news, arrange dates, play games and conduct a host of other mobile activities. A new survey by Deloitte finds that consumers check their phone an average of 52 times a day.
More than a third of adults say they use their smartphones "very/fairly often" for business purposes outside normal working hours. And 59 percent use their personal smartphone during normal working hours "very/fairly often."
"This year's survey confirms that while smartphones are becoming the nerve center of our homes, our businesses, our families and our lives — consumers are craving more speed and responsiveness as their usage patterns mature," Mic Locker, managing director in Deloitte Consulting's technology, media and telecommunications industry practice, said by email.
Still, most people don't feel they spend too much time on their phones -- with one notable exception that might be surprising to some: millennials. Sixty percent of 18-to-34-year-olds surveyed by the consulting firm acknowledge overusing their phones.
Smartphones remain the most favored mobile device among U.S. consumers, penetrating 85 percent of the market, up from 82 percent in 2017. The rate of growth is three times that of smartwatches, the only other mobile device that increased market penetration during the last year, Deloitte found.
Tablets, the mobile device du jour when Apple introduced the iPad in 2010, are actually decreasing in popularity. Just one group -- those 65 and older -- listed the tablet as a favored device for a preferred activity.
Along with our growing reliance on mobile devices comes something else -- fear. A large majority of survey respondents expressed concern about their personal data remaining private, with 86 percent saying they were concerned about data being shared with third parties. Another 83 percent were concerned about how their data is stored.
One thing consumers aren't using their smartphones for is to pay for things in stores. Just under a third of respondents indicated they had used their mobile device to make an in-store payment, and only 14 percent did so weekly, Deloitte found. The biggest obstacle to transacting business over the phone -- security.