Canadians will spend more than 14 years on their mobile apps

A new study reports that mobile phone usage continues to grow year-over-year across all age groups.

You just have to have a quick look around to see that Canadians spend a lot of time on their mobile phones. A new study from OntarioCasinos.com discovered that the average Canadian will spend 70.46 days each year on mobile apps, or 14.46 years of their life if they use mobile devices for 75 years. The report was compiled with data from various sources including Statista, Researchco, Pew and Data.ai.

Mobile phone usage continues to grow and has increased by 76.56% since 2019. As of 2022, 84% of Canadians owned a smartphone although an additional 4% own a cell phone that is not a smartphone. Canadians across all demos have continued to purchase smartphones over the last nine years with purchases by 18-to-19 year-olds increasing from 94% to 98%, 30-to-49 year-olds increasing from 82% to 95%, and those 50-plus increasing from 46% to 72%.

Screen usage overall has increased with Canadians spending six hours and 18 minutes daily using the internet via devices by the third quarter of last year. Mobile phone screen time has increased year over year from 3.2 hours a day in 2019, 3.9 hours daily in 2929, 4.4 hours in 2021, 5 hours in 2022 to 5.65 hours 2023.

Canadians are using mobile devices for social media 42%, email 40% and instant messaging 49%. Four hours and 38 minutes are spent by Canadians on mobile apps each day with 75% of Canadians active on social media sites. The most popular platforms they visit are Facebook (48.96%), Pinterest (20.63%), Twitter/X (14.29%) and Instagram (11.61%). Among Canadian gamers (55% of the total population), gaming on mobile devices, including smartphones, is the most popular activity at 46%.

Canadians are using their phones for everyday activities such as ordering food deliveries (88%), asking questions to their banks (69%) and asking questions to local government (78%). There are, however, a couple of activities that Canadians still prefer to do in person – ending a relationship (77%) and quitting a job (68%).