Have you ever accidently dropped and damaged your mobile phone after you’ve had one too many? If so, don’t fret — you’re hardly alone.
A new study conducted by CouponCodesPro.com reveals that one in three American iPhone owners is using a damaged handset and 47 percent of those phones were messed up by people who were, well, messed up on booze and sloppily dropped their phone on a hard surface.
Besides the influence of alcohol, the most common causes of damaged phones were young children (19 percent), clumsiness (17 percent), water (9 percent) and pets (4 percent), the study by the money-saving Web site found.
Researchers polled a total of 2,487 US citizens ages 18 and up. All participants owned an iPhone at the time of the poll, and had for at least six months previously.
When all respondents were asked if the iPhone they were using at the time of the poll was damaged in any way, including cracked or scratched screens, 34 percent responded that it was. One-fifth of these said that they had scratched the plastic or metal outer casing of their handset, with 9 percent saying their iPhone had been affected by water damage.
When asked why they had not yet had their iPhone repaired, the majority of the relevant respondents (71 percent) admitted that they would not want to pay for the repair, while 14 percent said that they planned to fix the problem the next time they had the money.
Of those polled who had a damaged iPhone, 27 percent said a protective case was attached to the iPhone when the damage occurred.
The majority (61 percent) of iPhone owners whose models were most easily damaged, or the most likely to be used when damaged, had either an iPhone 5, 5c or 5s, while 32 percent had an iPhone 4 or 4s model. The remaining 7 percent either had an original iPhone, an iPhone 3G or an iPhone 3GS model.
“It’s a sad fact that phones of all makes and models are damaged across America every hour of every day,” George Charles, financial spokesperson for CouponCodesPro.com, said. “However … we have noticed a significant increase in the number of visitors searching for iPhone repairs when compared to any other kind of handsets.”
Could it be that something about the iPhone drives its users to drink?
Just sayin’.