The survey on handheld usage and perceptions for Microsoft by the Ipsos-Reid polling agency of 1,042 adults found 45 percent of men saying their hands spent more time on the devices than they did on their partners, compared with 28 percent of women.

As for inseparability from the devices, 36 percent of men said the handheld phones and texting devices were at their bedside every night, compared with 24 percent of women, a Microsoft release said. Taking the technology devotion further, 34 percent of all respondents said they would dig through garbage to find their lost handheld communicators. Reaching into a toilet bowl to retrieve a dropped handheld was deemed acceptable by 20 percent of all respondents.

On the toilet issue, 30 percent of all respondents said they regularly talk or text while seated on one, the release said.