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Half of Brits 'fear life without mobiles', study says

More than 50 per cent of us suffer from "nomophobia", the fear of being without a mobile, according to a study.

Joe Svetlik Reporter
Joe has been writing about consumer tech for nearly seven years now, but his liking for all things shiny goes back to the Gameboy he received aged eight (and that he still plays on at family gatherings, much to the annoyance of his parents). His pride and joy is an Infocus projector, whose 80-inch picture elevates movie nights to a whole new level.
Joe Svetlik
2 min read

More than half of us Brits worry about not having a mobile phone, according to a study.

Women are more likely than men to suffer from "nomophobia" -- the fear of being without a phone -- according to the survey. It polled 1,000 people, and was conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Web security firm AppRiver.

It said that 54 per cent of Brits worry about "being out of mobile phone contact", and that women are 17 per cent more likely to than men.

It also showed just how reliant we are on our gadgets nowadays. One fifth of us check our emails in bed, and 42 per cent do so on the beach while on holiday. Just under a third (28 per cent) check work emails while away from home, with men slightly more likely to than women.

A quarter of us even check our mobiles during a dinner date, with women 10 per cent more likely to than men. Though maybe they're just dating the wrong men.

Despite this reliance on our mobiles, only 50 per cent of us secure our devices with a password.

"It's pretty clear that we're a society totally reliant on our phones not only for personal use but for business too," said Fred Touchette, senior security analyst at AppRiver.

"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."

Are we too reliant on our mobiles now? More than 9 million of us were the victims of cybercrime in the last year, so what are you doing to keep your data safe? And do you find yourself checking your phone on a date? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.