The average Briton receives 33,800 mobile phone messages and alerts a year, a survey suggests.

Mobile phone users receive 427% more messages and notifications than they did 10 years ago and send 278% more messages than they did in 2008, the poll for Virgin Mobile found.

Britons now spend the equivalent of almost 22 full 24-hour days on average checking their messages, an average of more than 26 minutes every day.

Smartphone messages
(Smartphone messages/PA)

The survey found that the average UK adult receives 93 messages or notifications from social apps every day, the equivalent of 33,802 notifications a year.

But those aged between 18 and 24 have almost three times more messages to manage, receiving on average 239 messages and alerts a day or 87,300 a year.

The study found a contributing factor behind the surge in messages is the boom in group chats on platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook.

On average, Britons are members of six chat groups, although a small minority (2%) are members of 50 groups or more, rising to 7% of those aged 18 to 24.

One in four adults say they check a WhatsApp message instantly, with this increasing to almost one in three 18 to 24-year-olds.

Dr Dimitrios Tsivrikos, a consumer and business psychologist at University College London, said the boom in smartphone use was a positive trend and allowed consumers greater control over their lives.

He said: “In an age where we are constantly surrounded by endless tasks, always flooded with a sea of data, smartphones allow us to manage our lives in a way that suits us.

“From calendars and reminders, to emails and instantaneous access to an encyclopaedia of human knowledge, smartphones give us total control, right at our fingertips.”

:: Opinium Research surveyed 2,004 UK adults who own a smartphone between February 12-18 and another 200 respondents aged between 10 and 17.