How important has Internet become in our lives? The Pew Research Center conducted a survey to celebrate the Web’s 25th birthday. The researchers were greatly heartened by what they found.

“In 2006, only 14 percent of American adults used Internet. Today, it’s 87 percent,” said Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project. “It is what has impressed us the most.”

The survey also showed that 70 percent of the Internet users have been treated kindly or generously online, while 25 percent of respondents said they have been treated unkindly. More than half—56 percent—of users said they’ve seen an online community come together to help someone solve a problem. 25 percent said they’ve left an online group because members were too unpleasant.

When Pew asked questions about whether being online has enriched people’s relationships—or not—the results were very positive: 67 percent of Internet users said their online communication with family and friends has generally strengthened those relationships. Only 18 percent said it has generally weakened those relationships.

According to the survey, 53 percent of Internet users said Internet has become the hardest tech tool to give up. It is 15 percent higher than the result of a similar survey conducted in 2006. In fact, more people said they would have a harder time stopping using Internet than giving up TV. (These days, so much great television streams across the Internet that it makes sense.)

“In our survey, we have found that the Web makes a few people very unhappy. There’s strong evidence pointing to the fact that Internet users tend to compare their daily lives with the ‘highlight moments’ of their friends’ lives,” said Lee Rainie. “It’s really silly.”

You get anxious if there’s no wi-fi in the hotel or mobile phone signal up the mountain. You feel upset if your phone is getting low on power and you secretly worry things will go wrong at work if you’re not there. All these can be called “always on” stress caused by smart phone addiction.

For some people, smart phones have liberated them from the nine-to-five work. Flexible working has given them more autonomy (自主权) in their working lives and enabled them to spend more time with their friends and families. For many others though, smartphones have become tyrants in their pockets, never allowing them to turn them off, relax and recharge their batteries.

Pittsburgh-based developer Kevin Holesh was worried about how much be was ignoring his family and friends in favor of his iPhone. So he developed an app — Moment — to monitor his usage. The app enables users to see how much time they’re spending on the device and set up warnings if the usage limits are broken. “Moment’s goal is to promote balance in your life,” his website explains. “Some time on your phone, some time off it enjoying your loving family and friends around you.”

Dr. Christine Grant, an occupational psychologist at Coventry University, said, “The effects of this ‘always on’ culture are that your mind is never resting, and you’re not giving your body time to recover, so you’re always stressed. And the more tired and stressed we get, the more mistakes we make. Physical and mental health can suffer.”

And as the number of connected smart phones is increasing, so is the amount of data. This is leading to a sort of decision paralysis (瘫痪) and is creating more stress in the workplace because people have to receive a broader range of data and communications which are often difficult to manage. “It actually makes it more difficult to make decisions and many do less because they’re controlled by it all and feel they can never escape the office,” said Dr. Christine Grant.

A 2020 study by Balbix found that 99% of the people surveyed reused their passwords between work accounts or between work and personal accounts. 【小题1】

For example, a 2019 study by Google found that 59% of the people they surveyed used a name or a birthday in their password. And 24% admitted using a password like one of these below: 1234, 12345, 123456, etc. 【小题2】 Since both personal and work accounts are accessible from the same device with the same password, it simplifies the work a bad actor has to do in order to breach (攻入) your systems.

【小题3】 The NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Password Guidelines are widely regarded as the international standard for password best practices. Following these guidelines—and insisting your employees do the same—will help protect you against threats from weak or stolen passwords. Password managers can simplify the work required for your employees to follow these guidelines.

It's more secure to require your employees to use more than one authentication (身份验证) factor to access mobile company applications. 【小题4】 They'd need to check on their identity with additional authentication factors in order to log in.

Finally, you can also perform passwordless authentication. 【小题5】 For example, in the event that a mobile device is stolen or accessed illegally, requiring a facial scan (扫描) or a finger scan as a primary or secondary authentication factor could still prevent unauthorized access.