Question of the Week

How much time do you spend on your cellphone or tablet?

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stack of tablet devices

Image from Shutterstock.com.

Lawyer and author Jeena Cho writes in her latest On Well-being column that she discovered during a monthlong silent meditation retreat how addicted she was to her iPhone.

“It’s a rare event to go an entire month without any digital technology—free from screens and free from the constant 24/7 pings and buzzes. I frequently caught myself habitually reaching for my iPhone only to realize it wasn’t on me,” she says.

A report from market research company eMarketer from earlier this year found that for the first time, U.S. consumers spent more time with their mobile devices than they do watching TV. Smartphones account for 70% of that mobile time—21% of total time spent with media in the United States, the report found.

The average U.S. adult will have spent two hours and 55 minutes on a smartphone in 2019, a nine-minute increase from 2018, according to the report. And among U.S. smartphone users, time spent with their device is three hours and 10 minutes per day.

“While there is no easy answer for how to live mindfully in the hyperconnected digital world, there are some practices we can incorporate into our lives to create a healthier relationship with digital technology,” Cho says in her column.

This week, we’d like to ask: How much time do you spend on your cellphone or tablet? Are you primarily on them for work or for pleasure? What advice or tips you do have for others to lower the amount of time spent on these electronic devices?

Answer in the comments on our social media channels via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Check out last week’s question: How do you show your gratitude to clients and co-workers?

And view some of last week’s answers from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Do you have an idea for a future Question of the Week? If so, contact us.

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