Prabhu RamAn average Indian spends nearly 1,800 hours a year on their smartphone, a study titled ‘Smartphone and Their Impact on Human Relationships’ by Vivo and Cybermedia Research (CMR) has revealed.
The study also finds that human relationships have suffered, with the number of people who meet their friends and family several times every month is down by 30 percent, compared to the situation about 10 years ago.
The Vivo-CMR smartphone study involved around 2,000 people from the top eight cities, spread across various age groups and demographics being surveyed. It involved in-person, as well as online interaction.
Nearly 75 percent of respondents in the survey admitted to having owned a smartphone right from the teenage years. Of them, around 41 percent were found to be hooked to their phones from a very young age itself.
The addiction is such that one of three people being surveyed said that it was hard to have even a five-minute chat with someone without checking their phone in between. The same number of people also believed that it was important to have a life away from their smartphone in order to be able to lead a happier life.
Commenting on the survey findings, Prabhu Ram, Head – Industry Intelligence Group, CMR, said, “While the explosive surge in smartphones in India has enabled Indians with not just communicating with loved ones, but with myriad other uses cases, including in consuming entertainment and in expressing themselves, our survey results demonstrate that the dependency over smartphones has increased. While smartphones will continue to be the primary go-to device, smartphone users have realized that periodically switching-off would help benefit their personal health.”
Source: MoneyControl
