Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul><li><strong>Three out of four people in India reportedly suffer from <keyword id="939340" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="NoMoPhobia" source="Orion">NoMoPhobia</keyword>.</strong></li><li><strong>NoMoPhobia is the fear of being detached from their smartphone.</strong></li><li><strong>9 out of 10 users feel anxious when their battery level falls below 50%.</strong></li></ul>A survey conducted by market research firm Counterpoint and smartphone maker Oppo has revealed that three out of four Indians suffer from NoMoPhobia. This could mean you may be suffering from this phobia even without knowing what it is.<br /><br />Confused about what NoMoPhobia is and why so many people are suffering from it? Continue reading to know more about it.<br /><br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="What is NoMoPhobia?" comment="subhead" text="What is NoMoPhobia?"><span data-til="noop">What is NoMoPhobia?</span></cmsannotation><br /><br />NoMoPhobia, which stands for <keyword id="1044227" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="no-mobile-phone-phobia" source="Orion">No Mobile Phone Phobia</keyword> is the fear of being detached from your mobile phone. It is the fear of not being able to use a smartphone.<br /><br />“Our smartphones have become our personal universes that enable us to stay connected, personally and professionally, and also for entertainment. Consequently, many of us have developed a phobia of being without our phones,” said Tarun Pathak, research director, Counterpoint Research.<br /><br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Battery and charging issues" comment="subhead" text="Battery and charging issues"><span data-til="noop">Battery and charging issues</span></cmsannotation><br /><br />According to the report by Counterpoint, battery and charging issues are among the top causes of NoMoPhobia. 65% of the users claimed that they go through emotional discomfort due to battery drainage. 28% of these users said this battery drainage led to anxiety in them.<br /><br />The types of discomfort users face due to battery drainage include anxiousness, disconnectedness, helplessness, fear of missing out, unsafe and nervous.<br /><br />87% of the people said they use their smartphone while it is being charged, and 92% use power saving mode on their device to get a longer battery life. Around half of the users said that they charge their smartphones twice a day.<br /><br />Smartphone usage is so high that 40% of the users said that their smartphone is the first thing they use when the day starts and the last thing they use when the day ends.<br /><br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="9 out of 10 users feel anxious when battery level is between 30 to 50%" comment="subhead" text="9 out of 10 users feel anxious when battery level is between 30 to 50%"><span data-til="noop">9 out of 10 users feel anxious when battery level is between 30 to 50%</span></cmsannotation><br /><br />The report has revealed that 72% of people feel anxious when their device’s battery level is at 20% or below, and a higher of anxiousness kicks in among 9 out of 10 people when the battery level is between 30 to 50%.<br /><br />Interestingly, it is the people above the age of 50 years that get the most anxious when their device’s battery level is at 20% or below. 80% of people in this age group get anxious, higher than the overall average of 72%.<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/google-pixel-fold-announced-whats-new-and-will-it-launch-in-india/articleshow/100003657.cms">Google Pixel Fold announced – what’s new, and will it launch in India?</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/nothing-phone-2-confirmed-to-launch-soon-with-snapdragon-8-gen-1-may-come-with-an-alert-slider/articleshow/99978052.cms">Nothing phone (2) confirmed to launch soon with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, may come with an alert slider</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/pixel-7a-with-tensor-g2-chipset-and-dual-camera-setup-to-launch-in-india-on-may-11/articleshow/99952642.cms">Pixel 7a with Tensor G2 chipset and dual camera setup to launch in India on May 11</a></strong><br />

Survey reveals three out of four Indians suffer from NoMoPhobia: Here’s what it means

<br />The use of mobile phones has increased exponentially worldwide, and across all ages. Undoubtedly, it has become the centre of utmost attention and caution. <br /><br /><strong>Phobia of Broken Phone- Nomophobia<br /></strong><br />Not having a mobile phone with you all the time is a rising fear among the millennials, more importantly amongst the teenagers. Thus the term, NO MObile Phobia. Every individual has carved out a new life which begins and ends at the precious device. So much, that living without it seems impossible! One experiences anxiety and restlessness when away from the phone and most of the people feel their lives would be greatly impacted by its absence.<br /><br /><strong>Analysis of the current trend<br /></strong><br />Talking about the current circumstances, it was seen in a survey that teenagers would prefer saving their phone than a small bone in their hand! This not only places mobile phones on a higher priority than the human body, but it also shows how deep an impact these devices are making on our generation. An analysis of this trend reveals that other than being expensive, the phones create a different world of social network for these individuals which makes it inseparable from their lives. <br /><br /><strong>Long term consequences <br /></strong><br />Indulgence into the smartphones is surely a pleasant experience, but for how long? In the long run, it is bound to make people less social and reduce interactions with human beings. This would gradually lead to a regression in human expressions and basic emotions since everything would by then be dependent on these devices. One can then expect reduced emotional intellect which is what makes this an alarming situation.<br /><br />Mobile phones are indeed a great tool for development. However, regulations are a must if you want to make the most of the benefits this wonder has to offer and use it wisely.<br /><br /><br />

Broken Bone Or A Broken Phone- What Would You Choose?

<p>With access to apps that instantly connects us to millions of users, much of our day is spent hunched over a screen. Adam Alter, author of '<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Irresistible-Addictive-Technology-Business-Keeping/dp/1594206643">'Irresistible</a>,'' explores the rise of technology addiction - specifically in teenagers. The following is a transcript of the video. </p><p><strong>Adam Alter:</strong> Nomophobia is a new word that's being coined to describe no mobile phobia and it's the idea that a lot of us, in thinking about not having our phones, experience something like a phobia and this is supposed to describe hundreds of millions of people today and I'm sure that number is growing at the moment. What that means is that when you think about, for example, your phone falling out of your pocket, tumbling to the ground and shattering into a million pieces, you should experience anxiety symptoms and it's especially true among young people.</p><p><strong>Alter:</strong> I ran a study at one point where I asked young people, a whole lot of teenagers, a very simple question. I said to them, "Imagine you have this very unpleasant choice. So, you can either watch your phone tumble to the ground and shatter into a million pieces or you can have a small bone in your hand broken." Now, that seems to people of a certain age and older like a fairly straightforward question with a straightforward answer. It seems ridiculous. Of course you choose to save the integrity of your hand and let your phone break. You can always replace a phone, but for young people this is actually a very difficult question. In my experience, about 40% - 50% of them will say, "Ultimately, I think it probably makes more sense to have a bone in my hand broken than it does to have my phone broken."</p><p><strong>Alter:</strong> And, you can understand why that is, apart from the fact that it is expensive to have a phone repaired and there's some time where you're without your phone, that is their portal to a social world that is very important to them. Being without that social world for a while is probably not as detrimental in some respects as being without a particular bone in your hand. Most of the time, you can get by and you can see this in the way they ask follow-up questions. So, a lot of these teens will say to me things like, "Is it my left hand or my right hand?" and the most important question, "Once I break that bone in my hand, can I still use my phone? Is it a bone that I need to be able to scroll on the phone, because if it is, then that's no deal, but if it's not a bone that I need to use my screen at least I can continue to use my phone during the time I'm healing." If people are willing to endure physical harm to keep their phones that obviously suggests that this is a major issue.</p><p><strong>Alter:</strong> The definition that I like for behavioral addiction that makes the most sense to me is an experience that we return to compulsively over and over again because it feels good in a short run but in the long run, it ultimately undermines our well-being in some respect. So, it can be someone who notices that over time their social relationships are degrading because they don't have a consistent, face-to-face contact with people and that's especially problematic for kids who need time in that real face-to-face social world because that's where they develop all the competencies of being a social creature. The way to work out what other people are thinking, to share your feelings in a way that you want them to be shared for other people to understand you for you to make just the right facial expressions at just the right times. Those seem like obvious and easy-to-do things for most adults but for kids it's very difficult to do that. They take time to hone those skills and so you need face-to-face time to do that and if you don't have that, if you're spending all your time on screens because it's really fun to crush one more candy on Candy Crush or do whatever it is that you might be doing, you're not developing those long-term competencies and therefore your long-term well-being is degraded.</p>

Teens would rather break their bones than lose their phones

<p>A Hong Kong woman was caught crying uncontrollably after her phone apparently died on the subway.</p><p>The original video was uploaded to Facebook by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AkiraChan1990/videos/vb.1678350663/10203360301483108/?type=2&amp;theater">Akira Chan</a> - it already has over 1.1 million views on the platform. We first saw the video <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/this-womans-epic-meltdown-shows-how-attached-we-are-to-our-phones/">on CNET</a>. You can check it out below.</p><div><div><div id="fb-root"></div><div class="fb-video" data-allowfullscreen="1" data-href="/AkiraChan1990/videos/vb.1678350663/10203360301483108/?type=1"><div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"></div></div></div></div><p class="embed-spacer"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Though it's surprising to see this woman's meltdown last as long as it does - she hits her phone several times, and stomps her feet in frustration - you shouldn't laugh at her situation.</span></p><p class="embed-spacer"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We don't know what else is going on in this woman's life, but if this woman is actually upset from her phone's battery dying, you should understand that smartphone addiction is a very real, albeit new thing.</span></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>There's an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-nomophobia-2014-7">official name for smartphone addiction now</a>: it's called "nomophobia" (short for no-mobile-phone phobia), according to the <a href="http://virtual-addiction.com/">Center for Internet and Technology Addiction</a>. Symptoms of nomophobia include "feelings of panic or desperation when separated from your smartphone, not being able to focus on conversations or work, and constantly checking phones for notifications." And people can't leave their phones behind: <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/184046/smartphone-owners-check-phone-least-hourly.aspx?utm_source=Economy&amp;utm_medium=newsfeed&amp;utm_campaign=tiles">A new Gallup poll</a> released last week suggests most US smartphone owners check their phones at least once per hour, with over 52% of respondents saying they check their phone several times every hour.<p>Nomophobia isn't currently listed on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the book that's widely considered to be the ultimate authority on mental health. But many psychologists believe nomophobia should be added to the list.</p><p>"Mobile devices can have a dangerous impact on human health," Nicola Luigi Bragazzi and Giovanni Del Puente of the University of Genoa wrote in their <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4036142/#b65-prbm-7-155">DSM proposal</a>. "Further research is needed, above all academic and scholarly studies, to investigate more in depth the psychological aspects of nomphobia and to provide a standardized and operational definition of it."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/type-faster-iphone-texting-caps-lock-domain-2015-5">10 things you didn't know about texting on your iPhone</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="Niajh3dDru17AYhSMTzbwpwOofNj-5Eu" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

This disturbing video shows a woman losing it after her phone dies on the subway

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Rich Fury/Invision/AP</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>An annual Deloitte study found that smartphone users are starting to become more aware of their phone habits.</strong></li><li><strong>Almost half of survey respondents said they try to reduce how much they are on their phones.</strong></li><li><strong>Users below 34 are the most concerned about a possible smartphone addiction. </strong></li></ul><p><br />There's no way around it - we are addicted to our smartphones. Smartphone addiction even has a name now; <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-nomophobia-2014-7">nomophobia</a>, short for no-mobile-phone phobia. </p><p>We've all probably experienced the symptoms at one point: panicking when separated from our smartphone, not being able to focus at work or during conversations, and constantly checking phones for new notifications. </p><p>The idea of being addicted to a screen is not a nice one, and according to a Deloitte survey, smartphone users have started to realize they might have a problem. Smartphone usage has been trending upwards since 2015, but for the first time Deloitte found that smartphone usage declined or plateaued in 2017, with almost half (47%) of survey respondents reporting that they are trying to reduce or limit their phone use. </p><p>Interestingly, the most concerned groups of people are between 18 and 34 years of age. Seventy-two percent of 18 to 24-year-olds reported they "definitely" or "probably" use their phones too much, and 75% of respondents 25-34-years-old also said they use their phones too much. In contrast, only 13% of those 55 and older are concerned about their over use. </p><h2>Common strategies to cut back</h2><p>Across all age groups there are a few common strategies for curbing the addiction. Most common is keeping a phone in a handbag or pocket when meeting other people. Years ago, this might have been normal common courtesy, and users are happily attempting to revert to the habit. Another common and easy trick is turning off audio notifications. Out of sight, out of earshot, and out of mind. </p><p>Despite the slowly reversing trend, Americans still have a long ways to go. Somewhat terrifyingly, Deloitte found that collectively, U.S. smartphone users look at their phones 12 billion times a day. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Deloitte</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/can-iphone-x-tell-difference-between-twins-face-id-recognition-apple-2017-10">We put the iPhone X's Face ID to the ultimate test with identical twins - and the results surprised us</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Americans are more worried than ever about being addicted to their smartphones - and they're starting to cut back

<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Mary Altaffer/AP</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>It should come as no surprise to hear that Americans love their smartphones. </span></p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/data-trend/mobile/device-ownership/">data from the Pew Research Center</a>, 90% of Americans have a cell phone, while a full 58% of them own smartphones. </p>
<p>More surprising, though, is the percentage of people who have developed a psychological attachment to their phones. </p>
<p>It's called "nomophobia" (short for no-mobile-phone phobia), and psychologists say that it's affecting more and more young people. </p>
<p>Symptoms include feelings of panic or desperation when separated from your smartphone, not being able to focus on conversations or work, and constantly checking phones for notifications. Some people may think their phone is ringing when it's not, a condition named <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227184/Cellphone_vibration_syndrome_and_other_signs_of_tech_addiction">cellphone vibration syndrome</a> that researchers say could be a sign of a more serious technology addiction.</p>
<p>According to Dr. David Greenfield, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, an attachment to your smartphone is similar to other addictions in that it involves a dysregulation of dopamine. Dopamine is a <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/dopamine">neurotransmitter that regulates the brain's reward center</a>, meaning that it motivates people to do things they think they will be rewarded for doing.</p>
<p><span>Greenfield</span><span> founded the <a href="http://virtual-addiction.com/">Center for Internet and Technology Addiction</a> <a href="http://virtual-addiction.com/"></a> to help the always-connected find a better balance in their lives.</span></p>
<p><span>"Every time you get a notification from your phone, there's a little elevation in dopamine that says you might have something that's compelling, whether that's a text message from someone you like, an email, or anything," Greenfield said to Business Insider. "The thing is you don't know what it's going to be or when you're going to get it, and that's what compels the brain to keep checking. It's like the world's smallest slot machine." </span></p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.lookout.com/news-mobile-security/sprint-lookout-mobile-privacy-survey">national survey conducted by Harris Interactive</a> in the fall of 2013, 63% of respondents said they check their phone for messages or calls once an hour, while 9% said they checked their phone every five minutes. </p>
<p>An additional 63% said they would be upset if they left home without their smartphone. Many would return home to retrieve it, even if they're out on just a quick trip to the store. </p>
<p>And, according to a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/16/sleep-phone-tablet-bed_n_3924161.html">survey by the Huffington Post and YouGov</a>, 64% of people between the ages 18 and 29 have fallen asleep with their tablet or cell phone in bed with them.</p>
<p>Still, you may not have heard of nomophobia because people who suffer from it may not even realize they have a problem.</p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6ef21a46-6e71-887d-43fc-7eaff0bba885"><span>"As with any addiction, denial is the number one hallmark. There aren't a lot of people who come out and say they have a problem, and the link with the anxiety they feel is much more tenuous," psychiatrist Dale Archer said to Business Insider. "Plus, the symptoms are not that bad with the majority of people. Like any addiction, I suspect it will be like that - 1% of the population with a full-blown problem that affects their lives."</span></span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>YouTube</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p><span>Some psychologists <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4036142/#b65-prbm-7-155">have proposed</a> adding nomophobia to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is considered  to be the ultimate authority on mental health.</span></p>
<p><span><span>"<span>It is undeniable that technology through new social media, social network sites, social informatics, and social software...enables us to perform our job more quickly and with efficiency," Nicola Luigi Bragazzi and Giovanni Del Puente of the University of Genoa wrote in their <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4036142/#b65-prbm-7-155">DSM proposal.</a> "<span>On the other hand, mobile devices can have a dangerous impact on human health. </span><span>Further research is needed, above all academic and scholarly studies, to investigate more in depth the psychological aspects of nomophobia and to provide a standardized and operational definition of it."</span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Greenfield says that nomophobia is just a small subset of a larger problem with Internet addiction. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>"A smartphone is just a more readily available access point to the Internet. My research has shown that the ease of access, availability, and portability makes it twice as addictive as other modalities," he said. "Convenience is the mother of addiction - the quicker you can get a hit back on the technology, the faster the intoxication." </span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span>Plus, constantly receiving tons of likes on your tweets or Instagram photos creates this feeling of self-importance that just isn't real.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span>"That feeling you're going to miss something if you're not constantly checking is an illusion - most parts of our lives are not relevant to our smartphones," Greenfield said. "What happens on our devices is not reflective of what happens in real life." </span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Digital detox programs, like <a href="http://campgrounded.org/">Camp Grounded</a> in northern California, ban electronic devices in the hopes that a true unplugging will help cure technology addiction. Guests at Camp Grounded participate in activities like archery, sing-a-longs, and meditative breathing workshops, all without the constant influence of a smartphone or other device. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">In China, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-addiction-treatment-camps-in-china-2014-7">Internet-hooked teens are often sent</a> to boot camps where they undergo intense military-style training designed to break their addiction.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">But both Greenfield and Archer say that curing nomophobia doesn't always require such extreme measures. <br /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Greenfield suggests downloading an app, like <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/tech/how-often-do-you-check-your-smartphone-enough-to-87795929829.html">Menthal</a>, that records just how much time you're spending on your phone each day. A huge amount of people lose track of time and space when they're on their devices, which affects the brain in a way similar to the way a drug would. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">And Archer says it's important to create guidelines for when it's appropriate to use your phone - for making a phone call, for instance - and when it's not. </span></p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6ef21a46-6eb5-1d7b-6e97-87391b74e5ed"><span>"Stop texting while you're driving. Don't take it into the bathroom with you. Have a rule not to use your phone when you're with your friends. If you're on a date, make a rule that you'll both check your phone for a maximum of 5 minutes every 90 minutes," Archer said. "It's all about setting simple rules that you can follow."</span></span></p>

Smartphone Addiction Now Has A Clinical Name

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Antony Njuguna</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>A central conceit of Bitcoin evangelists is that the cryptocurrency could be most useful to "the global unbanked."</p>
<p>These are the 575 million individuals in mostly emerging markets who lack access to basic financial services, even a bank account.</p>
<p>It principal, the advocates are correct. The time it takes to process a Bitcoin transaction - about 10 minutes - is far faster than the three days in the regular banking system. It's also usually cheaper. </p>
<p>But <a href="gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/SOTIR_2013.pdf">a new survey from trade association GSM</a> shows that even the most promising emerging market electronic payments technology, <strong>mobile money,</strong> has only just begun to break out, meaning it could take years to unseat cash as the payment method of choice in the developing world.</p>
<p>Mobile money can be used for just about anything. You can buy stuff at a grocery store. You can send and receive money to and from friends and relatives. You can pay and tip your taxi driver. And you can buy phone minutes. <span>To upload or withdraw cash, you need only walk to a mobile money agent. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The granddaddy of mobile money is a service called M-Pesa. Launched in Kenya in 2007, the service was an overnight sensation, </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">and is now used by much the adult population there</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">. Its success is chalked up to close collaboration between the Kenyan government and Safaricom, the unit of Vodafone that operates M-Pesa, that allowed the service to spread. It also began life as a pilot program for microlending, which allowed developers to realize users were tapping the service to send and receive payments instead. After this, there was a huge marketing push.</span></p>
<p><strong>Here's what the homescreen of M-Pesa looks like:</strong></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Noor Khamis </span></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p><strong>Here's an M-Pesa stand in downtown Nairobi. This is where you withdraw and deposit money.</strong></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Noor Khamis</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Africa and the Middle East <a href="http://leadership.ng/business/369506/mobile-money-transactions-rise-5-7bn-africa-middle-east">processed $5.7 billion</a> in mobile money volume last year. N</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">o other country has come close to Kenya in terms of mobile money adoption. Check out this chart showing volume breakdowns. Eastern Africa dwarfs all other regions. East Asia and Pacific, <a href="http://www.amcham.or.id/nf/features/4510-indonesia-s-booming-mobile-money-market">represented by Indonesia</a>, appears to be the next closest. The rest of Africa barely registers.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/SOTIR_2013.pdf">GSM</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">GSM's data data show a strange phenomenon. </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The number of registered mobile money accounts nearly tripled to 203 million in June 2013 from 71 million in <span class="xn-chron">June 2011</span><span class="xn-chron">. And the number of active users - those who made at least one transaction with the last 90 days - nearly doubled from 2012 to 2013. There are now 218 different providers beyond M-Pesa worldwide. </span></span></p>
<p><strong><span class="xn-chron">But o</span>f the 203 million registered users, East Africa accounted for 34%, with the vast majority of those being in Kenya. And the number of active mobile money accounts totals just 61 million - barely 30% of total registered users.</strong> </p>
<p>Here's the chart:</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/SOTIR_2013.pdf">GSM</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"Activating customers remains a challenge for a large number of services," GSM says. "Even when customers are aware of the service, they may not necessarily understand how they would benefit from using it. </span><strong style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Using mobile money represents </strong><strong style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">a significant behavioral change in economies where almost all payment transactions are conducted in cash."</strong></p>
<p>In fact, over-the-counter services, where a mobile money agent performs the transactions on behalf of an unregistered walk-in customer, <strong>are now the fastest-growing segment of active mobile money users</strong>, at a 102% annualized rate, most of it in South Asia. </p>
<p>These services "offer a compelling value proposition for unbanked customers, a segment where literacy levels are often very low and where people tend to be more suspicious of new technologies."  </p>
<p>Within Kenya, M-Pesa has become so ingrained that competitors have struggled to make inroads, meaning innovation has stalled out.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"Some people have been using M-Pesa for three, four five years, and are reluctant to take on new services," Mustafa Golam, a consultant for Nokia in Kenya, told BI. "There's a lot of technology-phobia - very few people will actually try it because they're happy with M-Pesa."</span></p>
<p>GSM also found that remittances - another key Bitcoin selling point - remain a "marginal service" among mobile money providers, though more seem to be adding them. Providers said they processed fewer than 50,000 international remittances in the month they were surveyed. "While a large number of providers are interested in launching inter- national remittance, major barriers continue to slow down the uptake of this product," GSM says. Instead, t<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">he fastest growing transactions type is bill pay. The largest service overall remains buying more mobile minutes. Here's a breakdown of how mobile money was used in a single month:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/SOTIR_2013.pdf">GSM</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">By GSM's reckoning, many citizens of the developing world have only begun orienting their commercial lives around the promise of mobile money. So </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">it's not surprising that Bitcoin's rollout in the developing world has been sluggish. Here's a chart (used with permission) </span><a href="http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-report-q1-2014/">from a new Coindesk report</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> showing the breakdown of Bitcoin vendors by region:</span></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-report-q1-2014/">Coindesk</a></span></p></div><p></p></div> </p>
<p>But as with most Bitcoin proponents, those looking to expand its reach into remain utterly undeterred by any of this. Mainly they argue that the same things holding mobile money back will allow Bitcoin to come in. </p>
<p>"Countries where there may be 3 mobile money operators with roughly the same number of subscribers, if that's the case, then [mobile money] not used widely," Pelle Braendgaard, the outgoing head of Kipochi, a Bitcoin payments app targeted at developing markets, told BI. "As a user, if I want to send money to anyone, I have to have an account with each of these services, so it's just not very practical."</p>
<p>He also observes smartphone use is steadily increasing - and indeed <a href="http://www.reseauactu.com/11-208418.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter#sthash.mt7l72ce.dpbs">Safaricom now says 67% of mobile phones sold in Kenya are </a><a href="http://www.reseauactu.com/11-208418.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter#sthash.mt7l72ce.dpbs">smartphones</a>. </p>
<p><span>What's more, M-Pesa now faces an "innovator's dilemma," in that it's too big and too entrenched to act upon what's on the horizon, Braendgaard continued. </span></p>
<p><span>"It's a transitory solution, it's not a permanent solution," he said. "It's been very effective but it's extremely primitive - it's showing it's age...I don't know how long it will take but I just don't see a particularly large future for it."</span></p>
<p><span>Aditya Khurjekar, a former Verizon exec, agrees that services like M-Pesa will prove temporary in the long run. Even if it's not Bitcoin itself, a Bitcoin-like payment "rail" that uses a network of computers to confirm transactions  will take over, not just in Africa but everywhere. </span></p>
<p><span>"It is a business model problem," he told BI. "I think what Bitcoin - the cryptocurrency infrastructure, the technology -  does is it makes these artificial constraints irrelevant.  It doesn't matter geography you're in, whatever the local bank consortium you're in, how quickly they have to settle money, it doesn't really have to follow these artificial constraints."</span></p>
<p><span>As with most things Bitcoin, it's simply too early to expect a substantial expansion in emerging markets. M-Pesa caught lightning in a bottle thanks in large part to massive backing from a multinational conglomerate. Given that Bitcoin is premised on doing away with such entities, it will likely have to wait a long time to compete.</span></p>

Forget Banks: If Bitcoin Is Going To Change The World, Then This Is The Real Competition

<p id="e1ea">In the year 1820, a person could <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy/" data-href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy/">expect to live</a> less than 35 years, 94% of the global population <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-poverty/" data-href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-poverty/">lived in extreme poverty</a>, and less that 20% of the population was literate. Today, human life expectancy is over 70 years, less that 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, and <a href="http://www.oecd.org/statistics/How-was-life.pdf" data-href="http://www.oecd.org/statistics/How-was-life.pdf">over 80% of people</a> are literate. These improvements are due mainly to advances in technology, beginning in the industrial age and continuing today in the information age.</p><p id="41f9">There are many exciting new technologies that will continue to transform the world and improve human welfare. Here are eleven of them.</p><h2><strong>1. Self-Driving Cars</strong></h2><p>Self-driving cars exist today that are safer than human-driven cars in most driving conditions. Over the next 3-5 years they'll get even safer, and will begin to go mainstream.</p><p><div></div></p><p>&#xa0;</p><p>The <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs358/en/">World Health Organization estimates</a> that 1.25 million people die from car-related injuries per year. Half of the deaths are pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists hit by cars. Cars are the leading cause of death for people ages 15-29 years old.</p><p>Just as cars reshaped the world in the 20th century, so will self-driving cars in the 21st century. In most cities, <a href="http://oldurbanist.blogspot.com.es/2011/12/we-are-25-looking-at-street-area.html">between 20-30%</a> of usable space is taken up by parking spaces, and most cars are parked about <a href="http://www.reinventingparking.org/2013/02/cars-are-parked-95-of-time-lets-check.html">95% of the time</a>. Self-driving cars will be in almost continuous use (most likely hailed from a smartphone app), thereby dramatically reducing the need for parking. Cars will communicate with one another to avoid accidents and traffic jams, and riders will be able to spend commuting time on other activities like work, education, and socializing.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2><strong>2. Clean Energy</strong></h2><p>Attempts to fight climate change by reducing the demand for energy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption">haven't worked</a>. Fortunately, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs have been working hard on the supply side to make clean energy convenient and cost-effective.</p><p>Due to steady technological and manufacturing advances, the price of solar cells has <a href="http://www.saskwind.ca/wind-cost-decline/">dropped 99.5%</a> since 1977. Solar will soon be more cost efficient than fossil fuels. The cost of wind energy has also dropped to an all-time low, and in the last decade represented about a <a href="http://energy.gov/articles/top-10-things-you-didnt-know-about-wind-power">third of newly installed</a> US energy capacity.</p><p>Forward thinking organizations are taking advantage of this. For example, in India there is an initiative to convert airports to self-sustaining clean energy.</p><p>Tesla is making high-performance, affordable electric cars, and installing electric charging stations worldwide.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>There are hopeful signs that clean energy could soon be reaching a tipping point. For example, in Japan, there are now more electric charging stations than gas stations.</p><p>And Germany produces so much renewable energy, it sometimes produces even more than it can use.</p><h2><strong>3. Virtual and Augmented Reality</strong></h2><p>Computer processors only recently became fast enough to power comfortable and convincing virtual and augmented reality experiences. Companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to make VR and AR more immersive, comfortable, and affordable.</p><p>People sometimes think VR and AR will be used only for gaming, but over time they will be used for all sorts of activities. For example, we'll use them to manipulate 3-D objects.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>To meet with friends and colleagues from around the world.&#xa0;And even for medical applications, like treating phobias or helping rehabilitate paralysis victims.</p><p>VR and AR have been dreamed about by science fiction fans for decades. In the next few years, they'll finally become a mainstream reality.</p><h2><strong>4. Drones and Flying Cars</strong></h2><p>GPS started out as a military technology but is now used to hail taxis, get mapping directions, and hunt Pokémon. Likewise, drones started out as a military technology, but are increasingly being used for a wide range of consumer and commercial applications.</p><p>For example, drones are being used to inspect critical infrastructure like bridges and power lines, to survey areas struck by natural disasters, and many other creative uses like fighting animal poaching.&#xa0;</p><p>Amazon and Google are building drones to deliver household items.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>The startup <a href="http://flyzipline.com/product/">Zipline</a> uses drones to deliver medical supplies to remote villages that can't be accessed by roads.</p><p>There is also a new wave of startups working on flying cars (including <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-09/welcome-to-larry-page-s-secret-flying-car-factories">two</a> funded by the cofounder of Google, Larry Page).</p><p>Flying cars use the same advanced technology used in drones but are large enough to carry people. Due to advances in materials, batteries, and software, flying cars will be significantly more affordable and convenient than today's planes and helicopters.</p><h2><strong>5. Artificial Intelligence</strong></h2><p>Artificial intelligence has made rapid advances in the last decade, due to new algorithms and massive increases in data collection and computing power.&#xa0;</p><p>AI can be applied to almost any field. For example, in photography an AI technique called artistic style transfer transforms photographs into the style of a given painter.</p><p>Google built an AI system that controls its datacenter power systems, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in energy costs.</p><p>The broad promise of AI is to liberate people from repetitive mental tasks the same way the industrial revolution liberated people from repetitive physical tasks.</p><p>Some people worry that AI will destroy jobs. History has shown that while new technology does indeed eliminate jobs, it also creates new and better jobs to replace them. For example, with advent of the personal computer, the number of typographer jobs dropped, but the increase in graphic designer jobs more than made up for it.</p><p>It is much easier to imagine jobs that will go away than new jobs that will be created. Today millions of people work as app developers, ride-sharing drivers, drone operators, and social media marketers- jobs that didn't exist and would have been difficult to even imagine ten years ago.</p><h2><strong>6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone</strong></h2><p><strong><div></div></strong>&#xa0;</p><p>By 2020, 80% of adults on earth will have an internet-connected smartphone. An iPhone 6 has about 2 billion transistors, roughly 625 times more transistors than a 1995 Intel Pentium computer. Today's smartphones are what used to be considered supercomputers.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Internet-connected smartphones give ordinary people abilities that, just a short time ago, were only available to an elite few:<p>"Right now, a Masai warrior on a mobile phone in the middle of Kenya has better mobile communications than the president did 25 years ago. If he's on a smart phone using Google, he has access to more information than the U.S. president did just 15 years ago."?-?Peter Diamandis</p><h2><strong>7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains</strong></h2><p>Protocols are the plumbing of the internet. Most of the protocols we use today were developed decades ago by academia and government. Since then, protocol development mostly stopped as energy shifted to developing proprietary systems like social networks and messaging apps.</p><p>Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies are<a href="http://avc.com/2016/07/the-golden-age-of-open-protocols/"> changing this</a> by providing a new business model for internet protocols. This year alone, <a href="https://medium.com/the-coinbase-blog/app-coins-and-the-dawn-of-the-decentralized-business-model-8b8c951e734f#.ctvhi399x">hundreds of millions of dollars</a> were raised for a broad range of innovative blockchain-based protocols.</p><p>Protocols based on blockchains also have capabilities that previous protocols didn't. For example, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum">Ethereum</a> is a new blockchain-based protocol that can be used to create smart contracts and trusted databases that are immune to corruption and censorship.</p><h2><strong>8. High-Quality Online Education</strong></h2><p>While college tuition <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/16/why-college-costs-are-so-high-and-rising.html">skyrockets</a>, anyone with a smartphone can study almost any topic online, accessing educational content that is mostly free and increasingly high-quality.<br>Encyclopedia Britannica used to cost $1,400. Now anyone with a smartphone can instantly access Wikipedia. You used to have to go to school or buy programming books to learn computer programming. Now you can learn from a community of over 40 million programmers at Stack Overflow. YouTube has millions of hours of free tutorials and lectures, many of which are produced by top professors and universities.</br></p><p>The quality of online education is getting better all the time. For the last 15 years, <a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm">MIT has been recording lectures </a>and compiling materials that cover over 2000 courses.</p><p>As perhaps the greatest research university in the world, MIT has always been ahead of the trends. Over the next decade, expect many other schools to follow MIT's lead.</p><h2><strong>9. Better Food through Science</strong></h2><p>Earth is running out of farmable land and fresh water. This is partly because our food production systems are incredibly inefficient. It takes an astounding 1799 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef.</p><p>Fortunately, a variety of new technologies are being developed to improve our food system.<br>For example, entrepreneurs are developing new food products that are tasty and nutritious substitutes for traditional foods but far more environmentally friendly. The startup <a href="http://www.impossiblefoods.com/">Impossible Foods</a> invented meat products that look and taste like the real thing but are actually made of plants.</br></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Their burger <a href="http://www.impossiblefoods.com/our-burger">uses</a> 95% less land, 74% less water, and produces 87% less greenhouse gas emissions than traditional burgers. Other startups are creating plant-based replacements for <a href="http://ripplefoods.com/">milk</a>, eggs, and other common foods. Soylent is a healthy, inexpensive meal replacement that uses advanced engineered ingredients that are much friendlier to the environment than traditional ingredients.<p>Some of these products are developed using genetic modification, a powerful scientific technique that has been widely mischaracterized as dangerous. According to a <a href="https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/01/29/pewaaas-study-scientific-consensus-on-gmo-safety-stronger-than-for-global-warming/">study </a>by the Pew Organization, 88% of scientists think genetically modified foods are safe.</p><p>Another exciting development in food production is automated indoor farming. Due to advances in solar energy, sensors, lighting, robotics, and artificial intelligence, indoor farms have become viable alternatives to traditional outdoor farms.</p><p>Compared to traditional farms, automated indoor farms use roughly 10 times less water and land. Crops are harvested many more times per year, there is no dependency on weather, and no need to use pesticides.</p><h2><strong>10. Computerized Medicine</strong></h2><p>Until recently, computers have only been at the periphery of medicine, used primarily for research and record keeping. Today, the combination of computer science and medicine is leading to a variety of breakthroughs.</p><p>For example, just fifteen years ago, it cost $3B to sequence a human genome. Today, the cost is about a thousand dollars and continues to drop. Genetic sequencing will soon be a routine part of medicine.</p><p>Genetic sequencing generates massive amounts of data that can be analyzed using powerful data analysis software. One application is analyzing <a href="http://a16z.com/2016/06/09/freenome/">blood samples</a> for early detection of cancer. Further genetic analysis can help determine the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/super-cheap-genome-sequencing-by-2020-2014-10">best course</a> of treatment.</p><p>Another application of computers to medicine is in prosthetic limbs.&#xa0;</p><p>Soon we'll have the technology to control prothetic limbs with just our thoughts using <a href="http://news.uci.edu/feature/to-walk-again/">brain-to-machine interfaces</a>.<br>Computers are also becoming increasingly effective at diagnosing diseases. An artificial intelligence system recently diagnosed a rare disease that human doctors failed to diagnose by finding hidden patterns in 20 million cancer records.</br></p><h2><strong>11. A New Space Age</strong></h2><p>Since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s, the vast majority of space funding has come from governments. But that funding has been in decline: for example, NASA's budget <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA">dropped</a> from about 4.5% of the federal budget in the 1960s to about 0.5% of the federal budget today.</p><p>The good news is that private space companies have started filling the void. These companies provide a wide range of products and services, including rocket launches, scientific research, communications and imaging satellites, and emerging speculative business models like asteroid mining.</p><p>The most famous private space company is Elon Musk's SpaceX, which successfully sent rockets into space that can return home to be reused.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><br>Perhaps the most intriguing private space company is <a href="http://www.planetaryresources.com/#home-intro">Planetary Resources</a>, which is trying to pioneer a new industry: mining minerals from asteroids.<p>If successful, asteroid mining could lead to a new gold rush in outer space. Like previous gold rushes, this could lead to speculative excess, but also dramatically increased funding for new technologies and infrastructure.</p><p>These are just a few of the amazing technologies we'll see developed in the coming decades. 2016 is just the beginning of a new age of wonders. As futurist Kevin Kelly<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/internet-still-beginning-its-kevin-kelly"> says</a>:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"If we could climb into a time machine, journey 30 years into the future, and from that vantage look back to today, we'd realize that most of the greatest products running the lives of citizens in 2050 were not invented until after 2016. People in the future will look at their holodecks and wearable virtual reality contact lenses and downloadable avatars and AI interfaces and say, 'Oh, you didn't really have the internet'?-?or whatever they'll call it?-?'back then.'</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"So, the truth: Right now, today, in 2016 is the best time to start up. There has never been a better day in the whole history of the world to invent something. There has never been a better time with more opportunities, more openings, lower barriers, higher benefit/ risk ratios, better returns, greater upside than now. Right now, this minute. This is the moment that folks in the future will look back at and say, 'Oh, to have been alive and well back then!'</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-7-worth-buying-2016-8">It's going to be a bad year for the iPhone - here's why</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="l5cjZjNTE6vFTshmBIw9CZMaa8UoNlIS" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div></br>

You Searched For "no mobile phone phobia" and got 8 results

Survey reveals three out of four Indians suffer from NoMoPhobia: Here’s what it means

Sourabh Jain

Broken Bone Or A Broken Phone- What Would You Choose?

BI India Tech Bureau

Teens would rather break their bones than lose their phones

Delisa Shannon,Noah Friedman

This disturbing video shows a woman losing it after her phone dies on the subway

Dave Smith

Americans are more worried than ever about being addicted to their smartphones - and they're starting to cut back

Caroline Cakebread

Smartphone Addiction Now Has A Clinical Name

Madeline Stone

Forget Banks: If Bitcoin Is Going To Change The World, Then This Is The Real Competition

Rob Wile

11 reasons to be excited about the future of technology

Chris Dixon

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides