Smartphone Security & Nomophobia

I learned a new word this week: nomophobia. It's a made-up word, but then all words were made up at some point. When I first saw it, I thought it mightbe the fear of baseball players with names like Hideo Nomo or Nomar Garciaparra. Instead, it's defined as a fear of being out of mobile phone contact-- "no-mobile-phone phobia." As a self-professed smartphone addict who's already grown quite attached to my Droid Razr Maxx, I had to stop and considerthis word.

I saw this term in the results of a study sponsored by security vendor SecurEnvoy. According to this survey of 1,000people in the United Kingdom, 66 percent admitted to suffering from nomophobia. Younger age groups typically showed higher rates of nomophobia, whichis probably to be expected since these are the individuals that have grown up with mobile devices practically grafted to their hands like a naturalpart of the appendage. In a similar study in 2008, 53 percent of respondents suffered nomophobia. The increase seems to be consistent with our growingdependence on our mobile devices.

In a study sponsored by a security vendor, naturally they looked at how people secure their devices as well and found that 46 percent reported using nosecurity of any kind -- no access code, no encryption. At the high end for secure devices, a mere 3 percent of respondents reported using 2-factorauthentication. (Personally, I suspect that 3 percent all work in the computer security field or are perhaps the nefarious type of people we'reprotecting our devices against.)

Having an access password for your smartphone can be a bit of a bother, sure. On the other hand, isn't it more of a bother if someone finds thatunprotected phone you lost and calls their best friend in Iceland before you notice it's gone, sticking you with the bill? Let's not even worry aboutwhat other data -- passwords, credit card numbers -- you might have stored access to in your phone's browser and apps. Putting in a little 4-digit PINstarts to seem a lot less onerous, if you ask me.

I don't think I'm a nomophobe. (And by the way, when this term was coined relating to mobile phones in 2008, someone should have done a littlechecking; it already had a definition as "A fear of or disdain for laws," but that's not nearly asinteresting, right?) I don't think I fear being without my smartphone. But then, if I always keep it with me, I guess I won't have to find out.

Ah, spoken like a true addict.

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