While many are claiming to appreciate the value of their memories more than any other form of data stored on their digital devices, they are willing to sell them for little money, as revealed recently research of Kaspersky Lab.
One of the surveys showed that for 49% of people their personal and sensitive photos are the most valuable thing they have on their devices, followed by pictures of their children and their spouses.
The thought of losing these precious memories is more stressful than the possibility of a car accident, a separation with their partner or a quarrel with a friend or family member. However, when faced with the decision to erase these data in exchange for money, people give their digital data - such as photos - for very small amounts of 10,37 €.
When asked, people argued that their digital memories have a special place in their hearts, perhaps because these memories are considered irreplaceable. Over 2 / 5, for example, declare that they were unable to replace photos of their 45%, children (44%) or 40%.
Research shows that the possibility of losing these precious memories greatly stresses most people. In fact, Kaspersky Lab's latest studies indicate that people often value their devices and photos more than their associates, friends and pets.
Kaspersky Lab asked participants how stressed they would feel about a number of events, such as a relatives' illness, a separation with their partner, a car accident, a possible loss of their digital photos or contacts, and a few other situations.
Across the globe, a relative's illness comes first on the list of stressful events a person can experience. The loss or theft of a device, coupled with the loss of digital photographs, is second and third to most of the world's nationalities, leaving the list of stressful situations in the car accident, separation with the partner, a bad day at work, quarrels with family members or friends, pet illness and a few more cases.
However, an experiment conducted by Kaspersky Lab on psychologists from the Media University of Werderburg also showed the researchers a contradictory result: despite all their love for their personal data, people are willing to sell them at extremely low prices .
Experiment participants were asked to assign a monetary value to the data stored on their smartphone - including photos of family and friends, contact information, and personal documents.
Surprisingly, the values people set for their data were significantly lower than expected, given the anxiety that they said would experience if they were going to lose their data. People tend to cost more their financial information and payment information (on average 13,33 €) than other data formats. Contact details were considered to be worth 11,89 € on average and general photos were valued at just 10,37 € on average.
In addition, the experiment has shown that people are more likely to exchange their most precious memories with money. When a fee was paid to the participants (based on the above amounts) to delete their data (no data was actually deleted), photos with family members and friends, personal documents and photos of the participants themselves were the categories of data have been more frequently approved for deletion.
"Our experiment showed interesting and representative results: while people believe they understand the value of their data, emotional value is not reflected in their daily actions. On the one hand, people seem to be aware of the types of data that are more important to themselves - they believe that the loss of their digital memories, such as photos, is extremely painful. On the other hand, people have limited information about the value of their data, giving them a minimum monetary value. They know they are emotionally important, but they are not in a position to appreciate their value yet. One should remind them actively of what they deserve the data before they are shared, or allow someone to delete them, "commented Andrei Mochola, Head of Consumer Business, Kaspersky Lab.
For more information about experiment and research, you can view the report: "Risking data heartache: It hurts to lose the data you love».
