1/3 of consumers willing to ditch their friends for their smartphone — study

A psychological study held by Kaspersky found out that a third of consumers owning a smartphone find their device more important than their friends.

In an experiment conducted by the universities of Würzburg and Nottingham Trent, on behalf of Kaspersky Lab, participants were asked to rate various objects and people in their lives in order of importance and 37.4% of them rated the smartphone as more, or equally, important than close real-life friends while 29.4% and 21.2% said that smartphones are more, or equally, important than parents and partners, respectively.

16.7%, on the other hand, rated their mobile device in the highest importance category but only 1.1% said that it’s more important than anything else.

The experiment was done by asking participants to position images of various people and objects in their lives, in relation to themselves on a diagram of a chessboard. Generally, family, friends, and even pets were placed closer than smartphones although colleagues in everyday work or study were placed far behind.

What’s alarming, despite giving their smartphones more importance above else, about 93% easily gave away the PIN or passcode of their device. Obviously, this puts their personal info and files in potential danger.

How about you? Do you value your smartphone over your family, friends, and colleagues? And would you easily give away your smartphone PIN when asked?