20+ Smartphone Usage Statistics for 2023

Are you a smartphone user? Most likely, as there are 5 billion individuals who own a cell phone, with smartphones accounting for a major portion of that number.

Many of us can’t imagine a day without a phone—we use it to stay in touch with friends and family members, read the news, play games, and whatnot. In a nutshell, they’re a part of our everyday lives.
Now, let’s see some smartphone statistics about how much we use these devices.

Short History of Mobile Phones

The first mobile phones from 1973 had only two options: writing messages and making calls.

Then, in 1997, we were presented with the option to play simple games. Remember the Snake game on Nokia? A couple of years later (in 2001), screens in color appeared; a year later, phones with built-in cameras became available, and then in 2010, smartphones were already widespread.

We didn’t use phones as much in the past. So, how much time is someone spending on their smartphone today?

1. The average person spends more than 3 hours on a smartphone daily.

(Sources: Elite Content Marketer, RescueTime)

A RescueTime study points out that twenty percent of users spend over 4.5 hours a day on their phones. Interestingly, smartphone users check their phones on average no less than 58 times a day. Every time they unlock their screens, they spend exactly one minute and fifteen seconds doing something, according to RescueTime. Simultaneously, mobile phone statistics also show that we spend roughly around 38 minutes during working hours looking at our mobile phones.

Let’s look at what age group uses smartphones the most. What’s the average time spent by teenagers, Millennials, and Baby Boomers?

2. Roughly 62 percent of teenagers spend up to 4 hours and more on their smartphones daily.

(Source: CNN)

A report from Common Sense Media unveiled that almost 30 percent of teens spend over 8 hours a day on their phones. Further data also points out that teenagers in America, in general, spend no more than 7 hours a day using their phones – alongside the time they dedicate to their homework and studying.

3. Millennials spend on average 5.7 hours a day on their phones.

(Source: ZDNet)

A survey by Provision Living indicates that both Millennials and Baby Boomers spend about one hour, more or less, just scrolling and chatting on Facebook. Also, other phone stats on Millennials show they dedicate precisely 48 minutes to texting during the day.

4. In general, Baby Boomers spend 5 hours on their smartphones daily.

(Source: Provision Living)

Furthermore, smartphone statistics denote that Baby Boomers spend most of their time (around sixty minutes) going through Facebook posts and chatting. Baby Boomer’s Facebook visits are followed by no more than 48 minutes of texting and a relatively high time writing/sending emails.

5. Women tend to spend much more time on their mobile phones than men.

(Source: Daily Telegraph)

According to gender-based mobile statistics, women spend over thirty minutes more on their phones rather than men. Additionally, somewhat broader results confirm that women outrank men even in the age group between 18 and 24-year-olds. Hence, women from this age rank spend around four hours on their mobile phones, opposed to men, who dedicate almost three hours.

6. More than 46 percent of all gaming fanatics are women.

(Source: MoPub)

Contrary to the popular belief that women aren’t into playing games on their phones, there came up data that tells us differently. Therefore, more than 46 percent of all gamers are women. Furthermore, the latest data on mobile games percentage by gender revealed that women, with precisely 51 percent, surpass male gamers (49 percent).

7. People can resist touching their phones for roughly two hours only.

(Source: RescueTime:blog)

Mobile screen time statistics revealed some interesting facts on how long people can stand not to touch their phones. Surprisingly enough, the latest data showed that the majority of people couldn’t stay away from their phones for more than one hour and forty-three minutes, precisely. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, but still, it wouldn’t harm if we try and resist it some more.

8. An average American spends a bit more than five hours on their cell phones daily.

(Sources: techjury, ZDNet, Daily Mail)

The online world has become an essential part of our lives, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, average screen time has, without a doubt, gone up. For instance, social networks occupy our minds for a large portion of the day. And Americans spend a little more than an hour a day on Facebook. In terms of time spent on other social media, YouTube is getting frequent visits that last no less than an hour, and Instagram follows it with 48 minutes.

More Smartphone Usage Statistics

Any idea of how many people worldwide use smartphones?

9. There are currently over 3.5 bn smartphone users worldwide.

(Source: Statista)

Statista’s latest survey results pointed to more than 3.5 bn people using smartphones globally, representing nearly 45 percent of the total population. And, not to lie to ourselves, this is only a number set to reach even higher heights. However, going back to 2019, this number was down to 3.4 bn, and even further back (2018), there was a downfall in the number of users.

Nonetheless, smartphones are bound to become more affordable for everyone in the future, so we can expect more and more mobile traffic as time goes by. For instance, this number is projected to hit over 4.1 bn by 2023.

Can you guess what percentage of Americans own smartphones?

10. Almost all, or more precisely 97 percent of Americans own some kind of a cell phone in 2021.

(Sources: Pew Research Center, Statista)

If you wondered how many people use iPhones in the USA, you might be surprised to find that around 50 percent of Americans are Apple, mobile users.

Additional survey conveyed by Pew Research Center shows that as much as 85 percent are owners of smartphones, which leads to a mere 15 percent of regular cell phone users only. And if we go back to 2019, we’ll discover that as much as 81 percent of Americans had smartphones; however, 96 percent of them had some type of cell phone.

Many people use mobile phones, but have you ever thought about what percent of web traffic is mobile? Well, it depends on the country.

11. Mobile internet accounts for almost 50% of the total web traffic.

(Source: Statista)

According to a Statista survey on mobile traffic networks, India is an example of a country where citizens primarily use mobile internet. In African countries, such as Kenya and Ghana, mobile users account for over 50% of the overall online presence. As opposed to, USA’s nearly 48% of online mobile presence only.

12. The average smartphone user uses nearly nine GB of monthly mobile internet as of 2021.

(Source: Statista)

Time spent on a phone screen has increased throughout the years, causing a surge in mobile internet usage. Statista’s survey statistics on mobile cellular data showed that in 2020, these numbers were down by 1.7 GB, or people in 2020 were happy with slightly more than 7 GB mobile internet a month.

However, if we make a jump over to 2016, you’ll see that an average person was using no more than 1.7 GB of mobile internet data per month.

Nowadays, for many people texting is a more central function of mobile phones than calls. Let’s take a look at how many messages people send every day.

13. Smartphone users send between 18 and 22 bn texts every day around the world.

(Sources: SlickText, SHSO)

SMSeagle’s smartphone usage stats show that around twenty billion messages are sent daily, and that number excludes texting via WhatsApp, Viber, and similar apps. Another study by SlickText points out that five billion people send and receive messages or approximately 65 percent of the world population. By 2025, the number of users who send texts is projected to reach no less than six billion.

14. Americans make as many as 800 million phone calls a day.

(Sources: CNBC, OCN Our Community Now)

With the Coronavirus being at its highest and people being in lockdown, phone calls have seen quite a rise – an astonishing 800 million calls a day. Further surveys revealed that according to AT&T, calls made by using WiFi had doubled as well. In addition to this, the call duration for the average person is about four minutes, but of course, a call to a close friend can last a lot longer than that.

Mobile phones ease up a lot of things, and sending emails is one of them. Next, we’ll share some email statistics.

15. A mind-blowing 319 bn emails are being sent/received a day around the globe in 2021.

(Sources: Statista, Statista/Number Of Email Users)

Despite the increase in mobile app usage over the years, email never lost its place in people’s interactions. Smartphone data usage shows that almost 85% of the world’s population uses phones to check their email. Over the years, the number of sent and received emails had been on the rise, according to Statista.

For example, just in 2020, more than 306 bn sent or received emails instead of the nearly 294 bn in 2019. That being said, these numbers are fantastic, considering the fact there are more than 4.1 million email users (2021) compared to 2020 when the number of email users was 4 million.

Social Media Screen Time Statistics

We all have one profile on social media apps, at the very least, so let’s see how much time we spend on them.

16. The average smartphone user spends no less than 145 minutes a day on social networks.

(Sources: Letter.LY, Statista, techjury)

Social media has become an inevitable part of our lives, and we spend a substantial amount of time on different networks.
Simple calculations reveal that many of us spend exactly 145 minutes, or two hours and twenty-five minutes to be exact – every day on the various social profiles we have. These digits denote a slight increase, yet a significant one. Compared to last year’s (2020) numbers, the average social media usage time was 142 minutes.

A recent Techjury survey showed that the average person spends most of the time on Facebook—over two hours.

17. The average Millennial spends almost 2 hours and 40 minutes on social media.

(Source: Letter.LY)

Like any other group, Millennials love to spend their free time chatting with friends, watching funny videos, and looking at pictures. Research done by Global Web Index shows that Millennials are mainly addicted to using Facebook. The second most popular social network among this group is YouTube. However, this might change as Instagram’s popularity grows with people on phones.

And now, let’s look at the time spent by Americans on social media.

18. US people spend somewhat more than 2 hours on social networks each day.

(Sources: Digital Marketing, eMarketer)

A Digital Marketing survey pointed out that Americans spend more or less 38 minutes on Facebook and as much as 28 minutes on Instagram. However, according to eMarketer (2020) research, US people spent seven minutes more on social media than the year before.

Screen Time Is Increasing

19. The global mobile internet traffic accounts for nearly 55% (first quarter, 2021).

(Source: Statista)

Nowadays, many things can be done using smartphones, and the increase in the average screen time is proof that people rely more on these devices than ever before.

For instance, Statista reports mobile internet traffic accounted for more than half of total traffic in the last couple of years – or roughly 55% for the first quarter of 2021. Compared with the first quarter of 2020 (around 52%), there’s a rise of 2%.

Nonetheless, taking a couple of steps back into previous years, it’s not difficult to see how mobile internet traffic is gaining in percentage with each passing year.

What compelled us to use our cell phones more than usual?

20. The pandemic brought two trends into the spotlight: Gaming and YouTube.

(Sources: Talkwalker, The Hollywood Reporter)

Since it’s advisable to spend more time at home during the pandemic, the last year has seen a surge in online activities. Among the many indoor social activities, people started playing more games (social and video games) than usual and spending more time watching videos on YouTube.

Take, for example, the data published by Verizon on video gaming stats amid the Covid outbreak. A report from 2020, denoted during the Covid-19 outbreak and the advised quarantine, gaming’s percentage went up to nearly 80% in the USA. Whereas gaming on YouTube also marked a rise of ten percent solely.

Smartphone Addiction Stats

In the last section of this article, we’ll share some statistics about smartphone addiction.

Do you know how many people are addicted to their cell phones?

21. Nearly half of parents believe their children are addicted to cell phones.

(Sources: SlickText, Finances Online)

Are we more addicted to them now than before?

Following the latest data report on smartphone addiction by SlickText, no more than 47 percent of parents are convinced their kids are addicted to their mobile phones. Nevertheless, nearly 90 percent of parents state they try to control their child’s cell phone usage as much as possible.

22. More than 60% of people worldwide show signs of nomophobia—fear of being without a mobile phone.

(Source: Yahoo! Finance)

Following Yahoo! Finance data on nomophobia revealed that as much as 66 percent of Americans are nomophobia. This is a percentage that is expected to increase as people get more and more used to their phones being with them 24/7.

23. Around 40 percent of people confess to overusing their mobile phones.

(Source: Slick Text)

Certain age groups use phones more than others; for example, people aged 18 to 34— more or less sixty percent of them stated they are using their mobile phones way too much. But many also try to limit their phone usage and focus on more important things.

24. An average person checks his/her phone daily around 63 times.

(Sources: Slick Text, Small Business Trends)

Often, people check their phones for a good reason, such as receiving messages. But many also check them out of boredom, even when they’re in school or at work.

Consequently, a survey by Review’s on how often US people check their phones revealed some shocking information. The survey unveiled that exactly 66 percent of US people check their phones more than 150 times daily. These are mind-blowing numbers. And there’s more to it since more than 55 percent said they sleep with their phones nearby them.

Conclusion

To sum up. The latest data in the smartphone world and mobile traffic are crystal clear—this is a market with no intention of stopping to grow and expand.

It’s astonishing to find out that some people check their phones roughly 150-160 times a day or that people cannot sleep without their phones nearby. However, there’s a good and very convenient side to it. Smartphones have made our daily lives easier; we’re a call or a chat away from our loved ones. Smartphones do good to businesses as well.

We also discovered that we want to play video games more than we thought, so, unfortunately, we found out that because of the pandemia that is raging around the world. Even better, now you know that more than 40% of women are enthusiastic gamers.

We hope these smartphone statistics give you a clearer view of the mobile world and its users and that you found them highly informative and useful.