Few festival fans guard against smartphone loss: survey

Ninety-two percent of music festival goers are more likely to bring a smartphone to an event than cash or ID, but many fail to guard against loss or theft, an industry survey Wednesday indicated.

Symantec, maker of Norton , quizzed 6,500 adults in 11 countries who have attended big music events at least twice in the last two years to gauge the role of smartphones in their festival-going experience.

"We found that mobile devices have never been more crucial to their (festival) experience," Norton's advocate Marian Merritt told AFP in a telephone interview.

One in five said they used their devices to present their admission tickets, and one in 10 reported using their smartphone as a to buy festival-related merchandise such as T-shirts.

However, 31 percent admitted failing to password-protect their smartphones, even if 35 percent have had their devices stolen, lost or misplaced—more likely than not on public transport.

Furthermore, among those who downloaded event-specific apps, one in four reported getting deluged with spam afterwards.

Regionally, having a smartphone at a festival was most important in Australia, Brazil, China, Japan and Mexico, Merritt said, while theft was the leading cause of loss in Brazil, China and Mexico.

North Americans were least cautious when it came to taking precautions such as password protection and special apps to combat malware. Latin Americans were most prudent on that score.

"We're very curious about our customers as they migrate more and more of their behavior to the ," Merritt said, but "we've got to get people to consider the possibility that their phone will be lost or stolen."

© 2013 AFP

Citation: Few festival fans guard against smartphone loss: survey (2013, June 12) retrieved 19 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2013-06-festival-fans-smartphone-loss-survey.html
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