My phone is my pulse.
I wake up, I grab my iPhone[1] and instantly I know I'm alive.
I disappear into terrible news, disturbing pictures, and, especially, short videos of people doing something truly ridiculous.
Then, I'm ready for my day, a day that involves hours of staring at screens[2]. A lot of staring at screens.
I write while staring at a screen that displays my words, while also staring at another screen that's showing a vitally important sporting event from somewhere in the world. (The effect is evident, of course.)
Somehow, I've come to edit out information about how long people are attached to their gadgets every day.
The answer is usually "a lot."
Still, a new study descended onto my screen, while I was watching the decisive Game 6 of the Korean Series. (The NC Dinos, owned by gaming company NCSoft[3], won the whole thing, bringing shame to LG and Samsung[4]. Thank you for asking.)
This study was dramatized with a startling revelation: "Americans Spend 95% Of Their Waking Hours Stuck To Their Devices."
Strangely, this came from a tech company -- specifically, NordVPN[5], which my colleague David Gewirtz considers one of the very best[6].
This NordVPN research, conducted among 1,000 Americans, offered sobering, if predictable, findings.
It seems that, on average, Americans say they spend 10 hours a day looking at screens. For work. I fear it might be even greater, given so many are working from home[7].
While performing this 10-hour screen starefest, Americans also say they spend 3 hours and 16 minutes surfing online. Yes, simultaneously.