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This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

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7 Gross and Stupid Things We Would Do For Our Smartphones

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Photo via Shutterstock

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What gross (and probably not-so-smart) things would you do to save your smartphone from destruction?

T-Mobile hired a research firm to conduct a survey and share the silly, stupid and gross results. Here are some of the results according to The Los Angeles Times.


  • 59% of smartphone owners said they would reach into a toilet to retrieve their phone (which is gross but not too dumb as long as you don't get your arm stuck in the toilet and require the jaws of life)
  • 63% would dig through stinky garbage if they couldn't find their phone
  • 25% would fight a thief
  • 17% would venture onto a train track or into a tunnel for their phone
  • 12% would run into traffic if they dropped their phone in the middle of the street
  • 10% would rather leave home without pants than without their phone (Okay, really?)
  • >50% of women said they'd rather leave home without make-up than their smartphone (Eds note: Yeah, okay, not really dumb or gross or insightful. We're guessing >50% of women don't care if they leave the house without make-up anyway.)

The goal of this survey conducted by Kelton Research was to get people to pay for an insurance plan—just in case your phone ends up in a thief's hands, in the middle of a busy street or at the bottom of your toilet bowl (which apparently happens to 1 in 5 phone users).

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