14 DAY TRIAL // Just like the rest of the smartphones, Apple’s iPhone evolved a lot in its first decade on the market, getting features that nobody could even think of a few years ago.
But while hundreds of millions of people got an iPhone, not everyone is using it right, and Jony Ive, Apple’s chief designer offer, admitted this during an interview at The New Yorker TechFest conference in Manhattan.
Speaking about how people use their iPhones, Ive explained that Apple’s flagship product suffers from the same problem as all the other devices out there: misuse.
It’s not a certain feature that they get wrong, it’s that people use their iPhones way too much. In other words, if you’re always holding your iPhone in your hand browsing the web, scrolling on Facebook, texting, or taking photos, you’re using it wrong.
“I think perhaps constant use,” Ive responded when asked about how Apple buyers misuse their iPhones. “This isn't a new phenomenon that we have to exercise a modicum of self-control to find the right balance.”
Phones ruling our lives
And Ive does have a point. For many people, handsets have become an extra limb to the body and mobile phone overuse has proved to be a problem with serious effects on social, health, and psychological activity of any individual.
A study conducted in 2016 by research firm Dscout determined that the average phone user touches their phone no less than 2,617 times, while in the case of the hardcore user this figure reaches 5,400. Apple itself said that the typical iPhone owner unlocks the device approximately 80 times per day, which means this happens nearly 7 times every hour.
A separate research performed in late 2015 by the Nottingham Trent University revealed that smartphone users aged 18 to 33 use their phones up to 5 hours every day browsing the web and using apps. This means phone owners keep their devices unlocked doing various activities a third of the time they are awake.