Digital Amnesia in practice: One-third of consumers are willing to "give away" their friends for their smartphone. Also, 93% gladly asks for his smartphone PIN when asked, putting the security of his friend's "digital best friend" at risk.
When during an experiment participants were asked to rate various people and objects στη ζωή τους κατά σειρά σπουδαιότητας, το 37% των συμμετεχόντων αξιολόγησε το smartphone του ως περισσότερο ή εξίσου σημαντικό με τους φίλους του. Τα Results του πειράματος, το οποίο πραγματοποιήθηκε από τα πανεπιστήμια του Würzburg και Nottingham Trent για account by Kaspersky Lab, show that smartphones tend to surpass friends in importance.
As part of the experiment, participants were asked to place images representing various people and objects in their lives in relation to themselves on a chessboard diagram. While family, friends and pets were generally placed closer to the participant than their smartphone, many other important people in the participant's life – including the people they work or study with every day – were placed one place behind in relation to with "digital companions".
About a third of participants (29%) said their smartphone is just as important and/or more important than their parents, while one in five said their digital device is the same and/or even more important than their parents. other half 17% of respondents rated their smartphone as the most important, although just 1% said their smartphone was more important than anything else in their life.
Despite the value placed on the devices as a source of entertainment, information and data storage, experiment participants were more willing to share their smartphone PIN number when asked, allowing the access in all their personal and sensitive data. During the experiment, 93% of participants gave their "digital best friend's" PIN when prompted.
Astrid Carolus, Researcher of Media Psychology at the University of Würzburg and head of the study, commented: "Our phones are an integral part of our lives and this study proves this in terms of Psychology. Our "friendly" connection with the smartphone it means that we have placed an incredible degree of trust in an inanimate object – so much so, in fact, that we consider it one of the most important data της ζωής μας σε σύγκριση με πολλούς ανθρώπους. Με αυτό κατά νου, μας εξέπληξε ιδιαίτερα όταν διαπιστώσαμε ότι ήταν πολύ εύκολο να πάρουμε στα χέρια μας τους codeς PIN of smartphone of those who participated in the study. We asked the participants to stay in a waiting room for a period of time and then asked them to tell us their height and code PIN of smartphone their. Without much hesitation, the vast majority of us gave it. "This is worrying, because it shows that we are willing to put our 'digital friends' - and the data contained in them - at risk".
The "equation" of digital devices with human qualities is nothing new. Similar experiments in the 1990s concluded that people attribute human characteristics to computers when they interact with them. David Emm, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab, commented on the security issues that emotional attachment to a device can bring: «After last year's study on "Digital Amnesia" - the phenomenon that means we forget the information we trust on our devices - our latest experiment highlights the strong emotional connection we have with our phones. Another interesting finding was that people rated their smartphones as much more important to them, compared to laptops or other devices that have the same level of information, which emphasizes the symbolic role that smartphones have in our lives as " digital companions ", who are always by our side. This emotional connection to the smartphone may mean that your decision-making process is more limited when it comes to protecting the data stored on it. We already know that many people forget to take care of the protection of their smartphones, as they see them almost as an extension of themselves. "So devices and users can be vulnerable to digital criminals."
The fact that many people attach more importance to telephones than their real friends and acquaintances shows how important it is to protect the information stored on them. Kaspersky Lab has been investigating the social implications of digitization for two years now and that it can make people more vulnerable to digital crime. An overview of these results is available at:
http://amnesia.kaspersky.com/.