How worried are you about losing your mobile phone? Answer: very, apparently…
‘Nomophobia’ affects majority of UK
More than half of people suffer from a fear of being without their mobile phone, according to a survey.
Some 54 per cent of those questioned said they experienced ‘nomophobia’ – the fear of losing signal, running out of battery or losing sight of their phone.
The survey also found that 42 per cent of people took their phones with them to the beach on holiday, while 28 per cent of people said they would check work emails while abroad.
So said the Telegraph. While the Independent declared:
Survey suggests half of Britons fear being without their mobile
Anxiety related to being out of mobile phone contact dubbed ‘nomophobia’
A new study of mobile phone use in the UK has found that more than half of the population claim to suffer from ‘nomophobia’ – the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. This could include losing signal, running out of battery or losing sight of your phone.
The term is an abbreviation of ‘no mobile phone phobia’ and was first coined in the UK after a study by YouGov examined various anxieties related to mobile use.
Ah, Nomophobia – the ugly, bullshit marketing term which simply won’t die (we’ve seen it before; we will again). Are people really living in constant fear that their mobile phone will be lost or stolen? Or, perhaps, could this be an advert for a mobile security company?
“It’s pretty clear that we’re a society totally reliant on our phones not only for personal use but business use too,” said Fred Touchette, a security analyst at AppRiver, the firm that commissioned the survey.
“What worries me is that, with so much information stored on them – confidential office documents, contact details, emails, photos and bank log-ins – when these devices get lost or stolen and end up in the wrong hands, the information is so easily exploited.”