'Father of the cellphone' Martin Cooper has a message for people glued to devices

Martin Cooper.

American inventor Martin Cooper, regarded as the father of the cellphone, is astonished to discover how much time people spend on their devices at present.

In a recent interview with BBC Breakfast, Cooper said less than five percent of his time was spent using a phone.

When the host of the show told him that she used her phone for over five  hours each day, Cooper was stunned.  "Do you really spend five hours of your day on your mobile (he said)?!" he asked.

The anchor then asked what he message he would give people like her. "I would say chill, get a life!" Cooper responded, laughing.

Cooper is respected as a visionary in the field of wireless communications, He did his most notable work at telecommunications company Motorola.

An electrical engineer, Cooper joined Motorola in 1954. He started off as a development engineer in the company's mobile equipment group and went on to become a corporate vice president, according to the Marconi Society website.

At Motorola, he introduced radio pagers and handheld police radio systems -- predecessors to the mobile phone.

In 1973, Cooper unveiled something revolutionary. On a street in New York City, he gave a demonstration of Motorola’s handset by making a public phone call before a reporter.

"The goal was to create public excitement about a revolutionary new concept in telecommunications: truly portable mobile phones that people could carry around and use to make calls any time, any place," the Marconi Society said about the demo.

In 2013, Cooper was awarded the Marconi Prize, which is named after radio inventor Guglielmo Marconi. It is considered the highest honour in the field of information science and communication.