People would rather lose their wallet than their phone

People would prefer to lose the contents of their wallets than their mobile phones.

A SecurEnvoy study asked what people would most fear losing from their back pocket – 37% said their personal phone, 20% their company phone, 25% said £50, with just 18% citing credit cards.

This is further confirmation that we’re not only increasingly attached to our phones, but that we’re also gripped by nomophobia – the fear of being out of mobile contact.

An increasing mobile phone addiction has meant laws have had to be introduced to curtail their use. While the use of handsets when behind the wheel of a vehicle has been illegal for a number of years, in America this has recently been extended to pedestrians.

Officials in the state of New Jersey will hand out “jaywalking’ citations to anyone caught “texting’ while walking along the sidewalk or crossing the road. The move follows three fatalities from this practice. Will the rest of the US and the world follow suit?

Andy Kemshall, CTO and co-founder of SecurEnvoy explains, “The mobile phone really has revolutionized the way we keep in touch – both in our personal lives and business lives. And this study really highlights just how high a value we place on them, especially with so many preferring to lose a relatively significant amount of money to their phone. As functionality increases on devices, so too will our dependence on them – we can already use them for so much more than talking.”