81% of young people fear being without their mobile phone, survey shows

An overwhelming majority of people between 14 and 35 suffer from nomophobia, that is, 81% of individuals from this age group fear being without a mobile phone, according to a recent survey published by the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) on Thursday.

The paper also found that 40% of young people are online with their devices to avoid "feeling lonely," while 20% of those surveyed have insomnia.

The average number of times a phone is unlocked every day surpasses 150, according to the survey.

The report, which was made in collaboration with IT services and consultancy firm Accenture, states that the capacity for attention has not only decreased among this generation, but among all humans. 

It has dropped by a third in only 15 years, that is, down from 12 seconds to now only 8.2 seconds.

One of the main reasons for this trend, according to experts mentioned in the report, is that 70% of people aged between 14 and 35 use their phone as their main tool to read digital content – they believe that paper allows better focus, while digital devices are more prone to distractions.

"Multitasking leads to a clear loss of efficiency," said expert in trend analysis at eLinC Guillem Garcia.

Inventor "horrified" at people crossing streets looking at screens

When Martin Cooper made the first call with a mobile phone half a century ago, he knew that in the future everybody would end up carrying one in their pocket. However, the extent to which the technology has grown and taken over our lives has surprised him. 

"It horrifies me when I see people walking across the street in traffic looking at their mobile phones., you have to be crazy," the 94-year-old American engineer tells the Catalan News Agency (ACN) at the Mobile World Congress.

In 1973, Cooper made the call with a Motorola phone that weighed a kilogram, and now he admits that he is "disappointed" by the loss of privacy that has come about in our modern lives.

"It's a serious problem," he says, noting that "rules" are needed to manage phone use and minimize their detrimental effects. "Now there are no rules, and I have to say I'm disappointed, because there's really no privacy," he says.

Despite this, he still believes that phones have made an overall positive contribution to our lives. "Every technology has drawbacks, but if you put everything in balance, the good and the bad, mobiles definitely improve the human experience," he says.

In fact, he predicts that phones will revolutionize the education system, and is of the opinion that new ways of teaching must be found that will be able to compete for young people's attention. 

Yet, the engineer hopes that new generations will be able to manage their screen use better.

"It's inevitable that children will have mobile phones", he says. "What we need to do is eliminate the bad parts, create a special internet just for kids, with mobiles just for kids," the American engineer argues, pointing out it could be "a huge market" for companies to explore.