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Jaw-jaw no more-more as calls fall down tally of phone tasks

Talk to people on it? Don't make me laugh

You think phones are for making calls? No longer, if a poll conducted by O2 is anything to go by. Talking to people is not even in the top three activities folk spend most time doing on their handsets.

Top of the list, with a daily usage time of 24.81 minutes, is web browsing. Social networking comes in at number two; 17.49 minutes are spent looking at Facebook et al. Third is playing games, at which we spend an average of 14.44 minutes a day.

Phone users spend 12.13 minutes making calls, but even that's less than the 15.64 minutes we listen to music for.

Emailing and text messaging come straight after speaking, activities that take 11.1 and 10.2 minutes a day, respectively.

Watching video and reading books? Yes, we do those to, but only for 9.39 and 9.3 minutes a pop. On average, we spend 3.42 minutes a day taking pictures.

All of which, in part, goes to explain - but no excuse - why modern smartphone operating systems offer a generally poorer calling experience than old-style voicephones did. If you've ever had a call not come through, or failed to receive a 'you've got voicemail' mesage, you'll know what we mean.

Maybe it's finally time to stop calling the darn things 'telephones'. Any suggestions for a more appropriate moniker, folks? ®

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