When they are asked, people say that their digital memories have a very special place in hearts, perhaps because those memories are considered to be just irreplaceable. More than two-fifths, for an example, say they would not be able to replace the photos and videos of their children (44 percent), themselves (40 percent), or their travel (45 percent). This survey shows that thought of losing the precious memories is considered as a very distressing by most of the people. In fact, this latest study from the Kaspersky Lab indicates that the people often value their photos and devices even more than their own friends, partners and pets.
The Kaspersky Lab asked the people how distressed they would be in different scenarios, including the illness of their family member, a car accident, the loss of their digital photos, a breakup with a partner, contacts, and more. Across globe, this illness of a family member ranked the first place as the most distressing incident which they could experience. The loss or a theft of a device, and the loss of their digital photos, ranked second and the third in multiple regions across globe leaving the a break up with a partner, car accidents, quarrels with family members and friends, a bad day at work, and even in some cases, a pet’s illness, as lower in the ranks of distressing incidents.
Further, this experiment also shows that it is people’s most precious memories that they are most likely to exchange for the money. When the participants are offered payment (based on the sums above) for the deletion of their data (no data was actually deleted), it was the photos of family and friends, personal documents and photos of the participants themselves that were the data categories most often approved for deletion.