People from Shropshire and the West Midlands are the most mobile-phone obsessed in the UK, according to a survey published today.

They were shown to be the most reliant on their phone, with 58 per cent of those surveyed checking their mobile every 10 minutes. In comparison just 29 per cent of Brits admit to checking their phone every 10 minutes.

The study by mobile phone comparison website rightmobilephone.co.uk  spoke to more than 3,000 people. It found that more than 60 per cent of people from the West Midlands region, which includes Shropshire, said they couldn’t go a day without their phone.

In the South West, this figure was just 11 per cent.

Neil McHugh, co-founder of rightmobile phone.co.uk said: “As a nation, we’re a pretty obsessive country when it comes to mobile phone usage, but after finding an increasing number of users on our site from the West Midlands, we wanted to see if there was any correlation between mobile phone dependency and location, which evidently there was.

“It can be tempting to check your phone every five minutes, especially if it’s on silent and you’re unsure of what’s come through.”

The findings come after a study which found that people in Shropshire were among the biggest users of the online social networking site Facebook.

Elsewhere in Britain, some 58 per cent of people in the South East think they couldn’t be able to go a day without their mobile, whilst 44 per cent from the North West said the same.

Almost 40 per cent of East Midlanders also claimed 24 hours without their phone would be too hard to bear. Only 15 per cent of people from North Eastern areas and 13 per cent of Eastern respondents said the same.