The majority of people who own a smartphone now use apps on a daily basis, but just how much they rely on them is surprising. Despite their relatively young age, we seem to have forgotten how we did anything before the invention of smartphones and tablets. Our mobile devices wake us up in the morning, tell us how far we ran, notify us of appointments, keep us in touch with the world and for many, help us go to sleep too.

It’s perhaps no surprise then that in a recent survey 85% of people admitted they’d rather go without water than apps! The same survey also found that 82% believe apps are critical to their everyday life and that they couldn’t go even one day without them. Popular apps people couldn’t live without are email (57%), Facebook (41%) and alarm clock apps (31%). Spain was revealed as the most app reliant country with a whopping 93% saying they couldn’t go a day without them.

The majority of people, 72% use around ten apps per day, although some admitted to using more than 50!

Perhaps one of the most worrying findings from the survey was what people said they wouldn’t be able to do without apps. Predictably ‘check emails’ was number one on the list with 48%, followed by wake up with 32% – clearly alarm clock sales have fallen lately! However, also included was ‘feel happy’, ‘maintain relationships’ and ‘find dates’, proving quite how reliant we have all become on mobile apps.

More results from the 2013 Mobile App Behavior survey, by Apigee can been seen in the infograph below.