Sad Fact Of The Day: When Travelling, You Love Your Phone More Than People

More Australians would prefer to travel with their mobile device than with a loved one, according to a recent survey. 64 per cent of us value the company of our phone while 42 per cent prefer the company of friends or family on a holiday.

It sounds awful, but when you look at exactly we are are doing on our phones while travelling, it begins to make sense.

Image: Shutterstock

After unlocking our phones on their trips, it appears that we are using our phone to search for restaurants and food markets (57 per cent), followed by using maps and directions apps to get around (54 per cent).

Lust (yes, lust) is driving us to hotels, with 20 per cent of those surveyed admitting to having made a same day hotel booking due to a successful date that they wanted to carry on. Twice as many men (eight per cent) as women (four per cent) use dating apps such as Tinder and Grindr while travelling. Unsurprisingly, Valentine’s Day is the most popular day for a last minute hotel booking at 16 per cent.

Nearly half of 18-29 (44 per cent) and 30-39 year olds (47 per cent) primarily use social media on their phones while on holiday — to show off their snaps to friends and family back home. The most popular social media networks to surf while on holiday are Facebook (74 per cent), YouTube (26 per cent) and Instagram (24 per cent).

Almost a third of Aussies regularly book their hotel stays on a mobile device (32 per cent) with this number rising to 40 per cent for the 30 to 39 year olds, according to the survey. Short interstate breaks (25 per cent), intrastate short breaks (24 per cent) and short breaks abroad (23 per cent) are the main occasions in which hotel bookings are made on mobiles.

Of all the places where Aussies book hotel rooms, 20 per cent of us say we have booked whilst in bed with our partner. Just over a sixth (16 per cent) of us admitted to booking a hotel on our daily commute and 12 per cent even confessed to booking a hotel whilst sitting on the toilet.

How about you guys? If you had to choose, which would it be — your phone, or your friend?

[Hotels.com]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.