Smartphone Statistics Australia: How Phones Are Affecting Our Sleep
Smartphone statistics australia — Australians spend 5.5 hours a day on their phones — and most of us check the screen within minutes of waking. Our team rounds up the smartphone statistics that explain why phones and sleep don’t mix.
Hannah on our team has lost count of how many readers email us asking some version of “is my phone wrecking my sleep?” Almost always, yes. Here are the Australian smartphone numbers that frame the conversation.
The headline figures (Smartphone statistics australia)
- 22 million Australians own a smartphone (~84% of the population, Deloitte Mobile Consumer Survey).
- 5 hours 33 minutes — average daily smartphone use, according to recent eMarketer Australia data.
- ~80% of Australians check their phone within 15 minutes of waking up.
- 1 in 3 check their phone in the middle of the night.
- 59% use their phone in the hour before bed (Sleep Health Foundation).
Notifications and interruption
Priya on our team kept a notification log for a week — 187 push notifications across messaging, email, news and social. About 40 of those came after 9 pm. The Sleep Health Foundation’s national survey found that 44.5% of Australians have been woken from a notification in the past month. The fix is “Do Not Disturb” or scheduled focus modes — both Apple and Android support automatic schedules that silence everything except favourites.
Blue light: how big a deal?
Smartphone screens emit short-wavelength blue light that suppresses melatonin and shifts circadian rhythm. The effect is real but measured — a 2019 University of Tasmania study put the average melatonin suppression from 30 minutes of pre-bed phone use at around 23%. Night Shift / Dark Mode reduce but don’t eliminate this. The bigger problem is usually the content: reading the news at 11 pm raises cortisol more than the screen wavelength does.
By age group
| Age | Avg. daily phone use | Use within 30min of bed |
|---|---|---|
| 16–24 | 6h 47m | 78% |
| 25–34 | 5h 52m | 69% |
| 35–49 | 4h 58m | 56% |
| 50–64 | 3h 41m | 43% |
| 65+ | 2h 12m | 27% |
What helps
- Charge your phone outside the bedroom. The single most effective intervention — and the hardest to actually do.
- Set a Focus / Do Not Disturb schedule from 9:30 pm to 7 am.
- Disable badge counts and lock-screen notifications.
- Use a real alarm clock instead of your phone — see our pick of Australian alarm clocks.
Sources: Deloitte Mobile Consumer Survey, eMarketer, Sleep Health Foundation national survey, University of Tasmania melatonin study.
For independent guidance on sleep and wellbeing, the Sleep Health Foundation is a good starting point.
