Monitoring your mobile use

Have you ever wondered exactly how many times you check your phone every day? Well, now you can with a free app for your iPhone or Android: Checky – developed by Calm.

It’s a wee bit scary thinking about how many times per day you check your phone, hey? Actually, the founder of Checky created it for that reason. ‘I was pretty much addicted to my phone… most days I check my phone over 100 times,’ saidcalm founder, Alex. His new goal is apparently to check it less than a hundred times a day. Some feat. Right?

Check-y yourself

I decided to check Checky out myself. And I’m proud to say that on my first (and last) day of using Checky, I checked my phone 41 times. Frankly, I thought it’d have been a bit higher. It was a pleasant surprise.

According to data gathered by Locket (a similar app for Android), the average amount of time people check their phones, is 110-times per day. This number includes every time you activate your device by pressing the power button, or unlocking it.

It’s strange to think that my meagre 41 ‘checks’ is well below average. Setting aside the social implications that these stats evince, it’s obvious that phone usage has reached amazing heights. And that the mobile phone is consuming more and more of our collective attention.

Not surprised?

Neither am I, and like I’ve written about in past articles, that people are likely to check their SMS 99% of the time, and 97% of those read SMS are read within three-minutes of receipt. It’s also not surprising to find that over 80% of the time people are watching television, they’re also browsing some form of mobile device. Or that 50% of people sleep with their smartphones on their bedside tables, to make sure they don’t miss out on any important calls or texts during the night.

I’d definitely recommend giving the Checky app a shot. It’s free. It’s eye opening, albeit scary. And it’ll give you great insight into how frequently you (and your fellow humanoids) are submitting your attention to your little glowing friend, Mr Mobile.

Search them in the app store to find out how often you Checky yourself.