The latest survey shows that people are not buying smartphones to ring people up and shout at them any more. Apparently people spend more time using their smartphones for surfing the web, checking social networks or playing games than making phone calls.

A survey from O2 shows that while smartphones are replacing more of our gadgets, such as alarm clocks and digital cameras, using them for their original purpose is not that common. The average smartphone owner spends more than two hours each day using the device which sounds high to us.  But during that time, smartphone owners spend an average of 25 minutes using their phone to browse the web, 17 minutes on social networking, 13 minutes playing games and 16 minutes listening to music.

Using it for calls was ranked as being only the fifth most important thing. It was only slightly more time than they spend writing and checking email (11 minutes) and text messaging (10 minutes). Photography was the most popular thing to use a smartphone for, with 74 per cent saying that they had taken photos with their handset.

David Johnson, general manager of devices for O2 said smartphones were like someone carrying a digital ‘Swiss Army Knife’.  Although those who do insist on playing around with them all the time, in our experience, are incredibly boring. Still the survey does mean that you are less likely to have a person shout into their phone “I am on the train” when you are forced into the rush hour London to Nottinham express.