Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we spend more time on our phones, computers and TVs. We spend most of our day in front of our screens, says Dimitar Ganev, a partner in the Bulgarian software company E-CARD, which ranks in the top 50 in Europe. The pandemic has forced billions of people to turn screens into a major window to the world, but it is a fact that digitalization and the use of electronic devices for many hours had begun long before, he said. Nowadays, it's normal to spend most of the day staring at your laptop screen, and the rest of the time browsing social media from your phone. Some even spend the evening in front of the TV screen, Dimitar Ganev explained.
The question, however, is exactly how much of our lives will be devoted to staring at a screen. A US study by WhistleOut shows that as a result of the pandemic, millennials already spend an average of 3.7 hours a day looking at their smartphones. Their parents, Generation X, use smartphones for an average of 2.5 hours a day. WhistleOut's calculations show that the two most economically active generations will spend about nine years of their life looking at the small shiny screen in their hands.
Three years ago, a study by the British agency Dreams had estimated that we will spend only about three years on our smartphones, but see now the statistics can change quickly. Statistically, looking at smartphones will take millennials and Generation X more years than meals and vacations combined, according to Dreams.
In themselves, these numbers are an occasion for existential reflection, but the accumulated hours spent in front of the smartphone over a lifetime throw us directly into an existential crisis. The problem of mobile addiction is exacerbated by the new coronavirus pandemic. Consumers are spending more and more time online and in front of the screen, which is to be expected as a number of other activities are limited, said E-CARD Manager Dimitar Ganev.