As part of ongoing research into UK mobile phone trends and habits, www.mobilephonechecker.co.uk decided to carry out a nationwide study looking into how long the average answered phone call lasts; along with how frequently they occur and how many people screen or ignore calls on purpose. The study polled 2,118 UK adults, all of whom owned a mobile phone, asking questions regarding their personal phone usage (as opposed to work use).
Respondents were questioned on how many mobile phone calls they participate in a day, as either the person making or receiving the call. According to the results, with all answers taken into account, respondents claimed to participate in an average of ‘4.3’ mobile phone calls per day. When further asked to estimate how long the average phone calls lasts for, the results showed an average of ‘7.2 minutes’ per call.
With these results taken into account, the average Briton therefore spends 3.6 hours chatting on their mobile phone per week; equating to 187 full hours per year, or 7 full days.
Those participating were then asked if they regularly screened or ignored calls on their mobile, with 31% of women and 58% of men taking part admitting that they were guilty of ignoring calls from those they wished to avoid.
The topic of missed calls generated some interesting results, with the average Briton taking part claiming to receive around 10.5 missed calls in a week. Furthermore, only 42% of those polled admitted to regularly checking their voicemail messages after receiving a missed call.
Adam Cable, Director of MobilePhoneChecker.co.uk, commented on the results of the study “Taking our average statistics from data collected, it can be assumed that the average Briton spends around 187 hours talking on their mobile phone in an average year and still receives around 546 missed calls during that time from others trying to contact them. To see that this equates to a full week was pretty surprising, and it’s funny to see how much a short chat here and there can add up!”
“I think this highlights that although we are now able to communicate through email, text and social media as much as we like, most of us still use our mobiles for what they were made for- having a good old chin wag. Sometimes there is nothing better than to be able to talk with a loved one over the phone, just make sure you have the right price plan in place to cover you for a week’s worth of calls per year!”