According to protection plan providers SquareTrade, Greek, Italian and Spanish mobile phone users are the clumsiest in Europe, at least judging from data gathered from 18 countries over the last 2 years.
The study shows 40% of Greek smartphone users damaging their devices during what are kindly described as "stumbling incidents" during the study period, while close behind 39.8% of Italian and 38.9% of Spanish users do the same. The least clumsy European country is Poland with an accident rate of only 24.3%, followed by Switzerland (26.3%).
Germany comes in 12th place, while the UK accident takes 6th place following 4th and 5th placing Norway and Ireland.
“Generally speaking, it seems that people from countries on the edge ofthe European dancefloor are the least surefooted, with Mediterranean phone owners, perhaps surprisingly, stumbling the most,” SquareTrade says. “While the percentage of smartphone tumbles varies from country to country, it’s clear that there are a lot of people out there who havedamagedtheir phone and themselves in some way."
For those with a perhaps cruel sense of humor, mobile phone-related accidents sometimes take amusing forms, such as the hitting of foreheads on posts and walls or the grazing of knees when tripping over kerbs, all due to device destruction. One Laura Safe even fell into a Birmingham canal while texting her boyfriend.
“I have walked into a low-hanging tree branch and almost knocked myself out while tweeting,” a survey respondent admits.
Mind, such levels of distraction are hardly anything new. Back in mediaeval times monks would reportedly trip as they read their illuminated manuscripts on the way to morning prayers. Truly, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Go "Euro-Collision Contest": Clumsiest Mobile Phone Users in Europe Revealed