Cell Phone Repair Hawaii: Some interesting Facts about Our Cell Phones and Smartphones

                      Observations from the Professionals at MobileREMEDIES®

Summary:  Most people in today’s societies have become accustomed to using and being surrounded by cell phones and smartphones but few realize just how prominent a role they play in our daily lives. The professionals at Cell Phone Repair Hawaii: MobileREMEDIES® present some interesting facts and give us a more accurate perspective on the importance of these devices in the 21^st century.

Did you know that in 2012 Apple sold more than 340,000 iPhones per day, or about 4 per second worldwide? This accounted for only about 18% of the total number of smartphones (allows access to the Internet) and only about 7% of the total number of cell phones sold. The number of active cell phones on Earth currently exceeds the number of human beings alive on the planet (7.22 billion compared to 7.19 billion in October of 2014). Does this mean that every person on Earth has a cell phone? No, not yet. It means that many people presently have more than one cell phone but it is a reasonable approximation to say that except in the most primitive regions, nearly all people will have one or more in the not-too-distant future! As of June 2015, there were 2.6 billion active smartphone subscriptions with this number projected to reach 6.1 billion by the year 2020. (If you would like to know more about the evolution of the smartphone, see: From Telephone to Smartphone: A long way in a short time! also from Cell Phone Repair Hawaii: MobileREMEDIES®)

Most people believe that they check their own smartphones less often than other people do and they inevitably underestimate the number of times they interact with their devices. The statistics vary widely, but recent studies using objective observers and monitoring programs report that the average person interacts with his or her smartphone 150 times per day, that is about every 6 minutes if you assume that the person is awake for 16 hours a day and doesn’t check it during the night! Even in studies that use self-reporting, more than half of the respondents say that they check their smartphones “several” times an hour. Some even admit to checking them “every few minutes” and 35% of smartphone users interact with their devices before they get out of bed in the morning. It is also no big surprise to learn that there is a very strong inverse correlation with age, that is, the younger you are the more often you interact with your smartphone.

How about the time spent on the device? In the third quarter of 2014, Bloomberg Business News reported that average time spent per day on the smartphone exceeded the time spent watching television for the first time since statistics were available (2 hours 57minutes vs. 2 hours 48 minutes). Reports for 2015 vary widely but are between 3 hours and 5 hours a day on the smartphone with voice calls taking up less than 10% of the usage!

  The Pew Research Center did a well-controlled study on smartphone use in over 2000 adults in December of 2014. It suffered from the inherent limitation of relying entirely on self-reporting but still gives us some insight into our current habits. Ninety-one percent of Americans own a cell phone of some kind (we know from other sources that as of April 2014 there were 103 active cell phones per 100 citizens; meaning that a number of Americans have more than one!) Sixty-four percent of Americans own a smartphone (up from 35% in 2011) and 7% use it as their ONLY Internet access. This number goes up to 15% in young adults aged 18-29. People in this younger age group also use their smartphones more than those aged 50+ in ALL categories of usage.

Eighty percent of smartphone owners say that it is worth the cost and 46% say that they couldn’t live without it! Seventy percent of users feel that their smartphone adds freedom to their lives while 30% feel that they are tethered to it like a leash. Thirty-four percent of young adults aged 18-29 have used their smartphones to submit job applications compared to only 4% of the 50+ age group. Young people use the GPS feature of their smartphone almost twice as often as older users.

Over 80% of American adults use text messaging, making it the most common cell phone activity. In 2013, U.S. smartphone owners aged 18 to 24 each sent an average of 67 text messages per day. People worldwide sent 8.3 trillion text messages in 2015, about 23 billion messages per day or almost 16 million messages per minute. People open their text messages 98% of the time compared to only 20% of their e-mails and 90% of text messages are read within 3 minutes of the time they are received.

It is
estimated that 1 trillion
photographs were taken on cell phones and smartphones in 2015 across the globe. That averages out to about 140 pictures per person on the planet! People share over 500 million photos on their smartphones every day. Today’s smartphone has largely taken over the role of the digital camera for all but professional photographers all over the Earth. In addition to digital cameras, the smartphones have also replaced many other previously dedicated devices such as music players of all kinds, pagers, voice recorders, GPS devices, small format game systems and even pocket flashlights, just to name a few. Today’s smartphones have more computing power than the devices used to land Apollo 11 on the moon (If you are interested in how our computer usage has evolved through the years see: “The Changing Roles of our Desktops, Laptops, Tablets and Smartphones”, also from Cell Phone Repair Hawaii: MobileREMEDIES®).

About one third or 33% of people will lose or break their cell phone or smartphone during their contract period. In Britain more than 100,000 mobile phones are dropped into the toilet every year and that number is likely much higher in the United States. Two things can be said with some certainty about the future of our smartphones: they will continue to play an increasingly important role in our daily lives and we will always be creative enough to find a way to break them!

At MobileREMEDIES®, with locations on Maui and Oahu and mail-in service from anywhere in the world, you get a free diagnostic evaluation and an estimate of the repair costs and time required. You also always get a 1-year warranty on parts and service. If they can’t fix your device, you pay nothing for the attempt! In addition to cellphones, they also repair iPads and all other tablet PC’s as well as iPods, game systems (Xbox, PlayStations, Wii, etc.) laptops and desktop computers. They also build custom computers for gamers and other high demand users, recover lost data, provide web services for individuals and small businesses, buy broken devices for cash or in-store credit and sell refurbished devices with a 1-year warranty, similar to a manufacturer’s warranty on a new device. You can find them at iPhone repair Hawaii, iPad repair Hawaii, iPod repair Hawaii, Data Recovery Hawaii, Custom Computers Hawaii and Xbox repair Hawaii. You may also go to www.mobileremedies.com or call 1-800-867-5048.