We Pick Up Our Smartphones 1,500 Times a Week, Stare at Them 3 Hours a Day

A recent study monitoring the behavior of mobile phone owners shows that the average smartphone owner picks up his device a staggering 1,500 times in a week and spends more than three hours a day staring into its screen.

The numbers come from a survey of 2,000 smartphone owners, conducted by the Tecmark marketing agency and reported by the Daily Mail.

The subjects first reached for their phones at 7:30 in the morning, on average, and many admitted to finding themselves using their phones “without realizing they’re doing so.” Two-thirds even said they manage to log in and browse Facebook without thinking about it, and four in 10 said the same about checking email.

Tecmark says its findings show that there are, on average, 140 tasks in a typical day that people now turn to smartphones for, cutting into time that used to be spent at desktops or laptops.

That last part seems to match recent Web surfing numbers. Earlier this year, mobile Web traffic actually overtook that of desktop computers for the first time in history. The decline in Web hits from PCs also somewhat coincides with an overall drop in computer sales in the past five years.

Could we soon be shifting to another screen? Some analysts are predicting the rise of a new, smaller display that could steal glances from smartphones: the smartwatch.

Google’s new Android Wear watches and Apple’s upcoming Apple Watch connect wirelessly to the handset in your pocket (or on your nightstand) and provide access to texts, emails, directions, and search information right from your wrist.

Though we’re not ready to crown these gizmos as smartphone killers just yet, we’ll certainly be watching their impact over the next year or so.

In the meantime, try looking up once in a while. OK?