The way that people use and abuse their mobile phones has been changing over the years. Many people in society are interested in learning more about what the specific changes are that are taking place. That’s why there have been a large number of studies and surveys conducted recently to gain insight into the habits of cell phone use. One of the most recent surveys to be conducted reveals some interesting information about the mobile phone habits of people who live in Australia.

One of the most interesting tidbits of information to be revealed through this study is that Australians absolutely hate to lose their mobile phones and yet they can’t seem to stop themselves from doing it on a regular basis. The problem is particularly annoying for young people. One third of survey respondents aged 16 to 20 would rather lose their keys or their wallet than lose their cell phones and yet one fifth of the females in this age group and one half of the males in this age group have lost their phones. Among the entire population, Australians say it’s at least twice as bad to lose their phones than to lose their house keys. Despite this, more than three quarters of respondents regularly have to dial their own phones to figure out where they’ve misplaced them and one quarter of respondents have lost or broken their mobile phones.

You would think that the fact that they so regularly break or misplace their mobile phones would make it likely that these people would back up the information that they store in their cell phones but that’s not the case. Two thirds of Australians don’t have important phone numbers stored anywhere other than in their cell phones. And three quarters of the women under thirty who answered the survey reported that they have important photos on their phones which aren’t saved anywhere else. Some of this failure to backup information is undoubtedly due to the fact that two thirds of Australians don’t even know how to back up (or sometimes even access) at least a portion of the information stored on their phones.

There is one thing that these people do know how to do well with their phones, though. They know how to store numbers inside of their phones in a way that keeps those numbers secret from someone in their lives. Only about ten percent of Australians intentionally hide numbers in their phones to prevent a loved one from seeing them. However, the number is a lot higher for men; approximately twenty five percent of Australian men store secret numbers to keep wives and girlfriends from seeing them. Now they just need to figure out how to hang on to their phones!