Do people in the West Midlands use their smartphones too much?

They’ve only really been in the hands of the masses for the past decade or so, yet it’s hard to imagine life without them. The smartphone is a digital Swiss army knife - offering most of the power and functionality of a personal computer in your pocket as well as so much more.

They are undeniably useful but inversely can be incredibly distracting. There are also deep concerns about mental health effects - leading to low attention spans, and with social media low self-esteem and anxiety.

Whether they’re a net positive or negative is a debate that may last indefinitely, we can all agree that much of their use is superfluous and we could all do with using them far less at times.

I’m here to speak to the people of the West Midlands if they think it’s a problem - and I thought I’d get some tips from our locals about how they go about using their smartphones less.

Stacey says: “I don’t think I use it too much. But I think generally people do tend to. Everyone you see, everywhere you go - buses. Kids - my child’s eight and he’s absolutely mad on technology - phones, tablets. So I think generally, as a population, we are addicted to smartphones. Technology in general, really.”

Sandra says: “People do use them such a lot. They seem to be on them all the time. You know, no matter where you go. There’s people sitting there on their phones. I mean, I know it’s new technology and things like that. But I think that it hadn’t ought to be like that, not all the time. You know, and sometimes they are useful, obviously emergencies and things like that. But when they’re continual, I think it’s too much.”

Shay says: “Well, I like to make sure that I’m out and about. I like to keep myself active, whether that’s going to see my girlfriend or if I’m going out to play football with my friends in the park.

“But I feel like we need to, you know, be more active. I feel like there is a problem with people who don’t want to go out because they have their phones and they have their consoles.

“And I feel like we need to push it really where we really need to get young people especially to stay stimulated. Because getting younger and younger, you’ll see more people growing up with smartphones and they’ll just think that’s how life is and how it should be.”