Smartphone owners use their devices for an average of five hours a day and check it for messages about 85 times in the same period – without even realising they are doing so.
This is according to the findings of a new study carried out by researchers at Nottingham Trent University and published in the scientific journal Plos One.
When asked about what they thought of their smartphone usage habits compared with their actual use, respondents generally believed they were on their phone for about half the time they really are.
These findings prompted the study authors to suggest that rapid mobile phone interactions are becoming a more habitual trend among users.
Lancaster University, the University of Lincoln and the University of the West of England were also involved in the survey, which asked 23 participants aged 18-33 to estimate how much time they had spent on their phone.
After this, an app was installed on their phones to record their usage over a two-week period, monitoring activities such as checking the time, looking at message notifications or social media alerts, making phone calls and playing music.
The majority of this use was confined to very short periods of no more than 30 seconds each.
Dr Sally Andrews, a psychologist in Nottingham Trent University's School of Social Sciences, said the findings shed light on phone-checking behaviour.
"People have very little awareness of the frequency with which they check their phone," she commented, adding: "This is the first study to objectively demonstrate that some of our mobile phone interactions are habitual."
Lancaster University psychologist Dr David Ellis said: "Psychologists typically rely on self-report data when quantifying mobile phone usage in studies, but our work suggests that estimated smartphone use should be interpreted with caution."