Smartphone-obsessed Finland ranks top in screen time

PanARMENIAN.Net - Finland, once a world leader in mobile telephony with Nokia, is in a class of its own when it comes to internet usage on smartphones and tablets, thanks to cheap subscription plans. In the first half of 2016, Finns used nearly twice as much mobile data on portable devices as South Koreans, who came second in a recent comparison of 32 European and Asian countries by Swedish telecommunication specialist Tefficient, AFP says.

Finns spend so much time on their phones that authorities are concerned: the city of Helsinki's department of health and social services recently launched a campaign telling parents to get their priorities straight.

In a controversial video that angered many parents, a black raven swoops down and carries away a little girl on a beach while her mother focuses on her smartphone, followed by the message: "Negligence is modern day violence."

Offended Helsinkians flooded the city with negative feedback, accusing it of criticising all phone usage, and especially women by depicting only the child's mother in the video.

But the city said it was intended to highlight the fact that some mothers spend too much time on their smartphones instead of playing with their children, and that some fathers are largely absent from their children's lives.

Tefficient's comparison found that in the Netherlands, where operators charged the most for a gigabyte of mobile data, it cost 14 times more than in Finland, where it was the cheapest of all 32 countries compared.

More than half of all phone and tablet connections in Finland come with an unlimited data plan for a fixed monthly price, meaning consumers can browse on their phones as much as they like without having to fear a monster invoice at the end of the month.