How long after you wake up do you check your e-mail?
IDC study for Facebook
While marketers with ambitious mobile phone ideas are gathered in New York this week, they are discussing (with glee) how addicted consumers are to their cell phones. For example:
79 percent of U.S. adults aged 18-44 say they check their smartphone within 15 minutes of waking up.
63 percent of that group says they never spend more than an hour per day away from their phones.
(The source is an IDC study conducted for Facebook. You can see it here.)
This are obviously good for marketers, who desperately want to get in between you and your desperation to see your smartphone. It might not be good for us mere mortals. Susan Weinschank writes pursuasively about the dopamine-induced loops that Internet users get lost it, made all the more powerful (addictive) when we are waiting for the pleasure-enhancing ding of an instant message from someone. All the evidence you need is to think about the last time you were driving and you knew a text message was waiting for you, in that gadget sitting on the passenger seat next to you.
How long can you wait in the morning before checking e-mail? More or less than 15 minutes? Does having kids provide a natural defense against it? Is your boss to blame?
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