The smarter the phone the harder the fall

Using your smartphone can be dangerous according to findings from a new study by gadget insurance specialists SquareTrade and it's people as well as devices that are getting damaged.

A poll of UK smartphone owners found that a stunning -- or possibly stunned -- 86 percent had tripped, stumbled or hit a lamppost or wall when distracted by using a mobile device. Stumbling incidents accounted for 37.2 percent of people damaging their phones in the last two years with over half of all accidents happening in the home. Also 18 percent of accidents were caused by someone other than the phone owner.

Brits aren't the clumsiest in Europe though -- 40 percent of Greek smartphone users managed to damage their phones in stumbling incidents the last two years. Whilst over the same period, 39.8 percent of Italian and 38.9 percent of Spanish smartphone users had slipped up when using a phone. Maybe the Mediterranean climate has something to do with it?

Least likely to have accidents whilst using their phones are the Poles (24.3 percent), Belgians (24.9) and Swiss (26.3). Kevin Gillan, SquareTrade's European managing director says, "While the percentage of smartphone tumbles varies from country to country, it’s clear that there are a lot of people out there who have damaged their phone and themselves in some way. Talking and walking are perfectly safe, but perhaps our smarter phones are now putting us at risk by diverting our eyes off the path ahead".

Doctors too are reporting an increase in the number of people admitting to having mobile-related mishaps. Dr Louise Newson, a British GP, says "I've seen a lot of mobile-related injuries in my surgery in the last 12 months, mostly from people tripping or bumping into something because they've been distracted by their smartphone. Some of the injuries are quite nasty. As more young children and elderly people are using mobile phones, I expect that we’ll see more mobile-related injuries in these groups of people in future".

You can see a breakdown of Europe's clumsiest countries when it comes to damaging smartphones in infographic form below. And if you've had a mobile related accident do let us know in the comments. We promise not to laugh.

Image credit: Stokkete / Shutterstock