by Emma Beavon

The majority of Britons cannot get through a meal without checking their phones, according to a new report.

The report released is based on a survey with 2,000 participants, which was recently carried out by YouGov.

It found that 55% of people said that they check their phones at the dinner table, with 53% of people also using their phones when they are out for dinner with family or friends.

Chloe Goddard McLoughlin, from Ranmoor Therapy believes that we’re becoming more dependent on our phones because of the chemical rush we get from getting likes.

“When we’re using our phones to go on social media we’re actually activating a chemical in our brain which is dopamine,” she said.

“Dopamine is linked to addiction and actually every time we like something or someone likes our posts we get a bit of a hit, the difficulty with that is that it’s never enough.”  

Addiction to social media has become an increasing reality within our society. The Gov report also showed that more than half of the participants said they could not go two days without checking their phones and one in three people said four hours without their phone is too much. 

It is evident that we are becoming glued to our screens as they are becoming a more dominant presence in our lives.