You could have a bad case of nomophobia
Canadians say they feel naked without their mobile devices
“Nurse, give me two milligrams of lorazepam, stat! This man has lost his cellphone!”
Based on a nationwide survey gauging Canadians’ relationship with their phones, tech experts predict the New Year will be fraught with “nomophobia”: the fear of being out of mobile contact. Responses from 1,040 people revealed that 65 per cent of smartphone and tablet owners feel “naked” when they don’t have their device; 46 sleep with their smartphone next to them while another five per cent keep it in the bed; and 55 per cent check it before they even brush their teeth in the morning.
“The mobile device has become an essential piece of a person’s life,” says Reade Barber, vice-president of mobile and fixed Internet at Rogers Communications. “That 82 per cent of people are using their smartphone in the bathroom tells you just how important it is to stay connected.”
The findings are showcased in a new report in which Canadians’ forecasts for everything from Internet TV to telecommuting are revealed.
Chief among the trends is Internet entertainment, with the past year having seen 52 per cent of Canadians increase the amount of TV and movies they watched online. Men were nearly twice as likely as women to do this — a finding Barber attributes to the overrepresentation of sports apps on mobile devices.
“Canadians, on average, have 4.5 connected devices in their household,” says Barber. “And over the next five years, the majority of people we surveyed — about 65 per cent — expect to have seamless connections that allow them to go room to room without missing a second of a TV show, movie or game.”
Linked to that belief is the trend toward integration, as demonstrated by “technology ecosystems” such as Windows 8. Fully 82 per cent of those surveyed felt 2013 would see more symbiotic relationships between devices (say, a Mac desktop communicating wirelessly with an iPhone).
Working from home is also expected to increase, with 59 per cent of Canadians believing that cloud services, combined with faster mobile networks, will enable better productivity and ultimately more telecommuting.
Another projected shift is in mobile payments, which in 2012 were used by roughly one in 10 people.