{"id":12243,"date":"2016-05-31T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?p=12243"},"modified":"2016-06-02T03:58:45","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T07:58:45","slug":"smartphone-my-precious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/smartphone-my-precious\/12243\/","title":{"rendered":"Married to our smartphones? For one man it’s become a reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Would you say you love your smartphone? Nothing unusual about that \u2014 I\u2019m sure many people would say the same. Sometimes we hate our smartphones, too; every good relationship has ups and downs. But would you say that what you have with your smartphone is an emotional<\/i> relationship? Psychological research suggests that is exactly what we have.<\/p>\n

\"Married<\/p>\n

The Universities of W\u00fcrzburg and Nottingham-Trent have researched how involved we are with our phones, and the results are pretty impressive. Among study participants, 37.4% rated their smartphone equally as, or more important than, their close friends. Perhaps it won\u2019t be long before smartphones completely overtake friends in importance.<\/p>\n

The research also found that:<\/p>\n

\u2013 29.4% of participants said their smartphone was equally important, or more important to them, than their parents;<\/p>\n

\u2013 21.2% said their smartphone was equal to, or more important than, their partner;<\/p>\n

\u2013 16.7% rated their smartphone as of highest importance for them, although only 1.1% said their smartphone was more important than anything else in their life.<\/p>\n

Married to our #smartphones? For one man it\u2019s become a reality<\/p>Tweet<\/a><\/blockquote>\n

But still, it\u2019s not exactly what we would normally think of as a relationship. Well, maybe it\u2019s closer than we think: Let\u2019s have a quick look to Las Vegas. On May 20, 2016, a group of people came together at a local wedding chapel to celebrate a very special event: the marriage of Aaron Chervenak to his smartphone.<\/p>\n

In reality, Chervenak is a video artist and adventurer, and not actually head over heels for his smartphone. He explains why he went through with the marriage: \u201cSmartphones have become very important in our lives. They are with us all the time, they entertain us, help us to cook, communicate with us \u2014 they are actually very social.\u201d So, he says, he wanted to find out if it was possible, and how people would react.<\/p>\n