Digital resolutions as important as health kicks in 2024

As the world welcomes 2024, traditionally people contemplate a health kick, but now the role technology plays in life is leading to a surge in digital New Year’s resolutions. Almost half of people in the UK and Europe have resolved to make impactful changes in their digital habits for the forthcoming year, research by Kaspersky shows. 

Digital resolutions are about making promises to change online habits and protect online privacy in 2024 and this is no surprise, as we spend more time than ever online. Latest data reveals 46 percent are now adding a digital resolution to their lifestyle for the year. But perhaps what is more surprising is that of those who made a digital resolution for 2023 (43%), 76 percent have kept it. 

The top New Year’s digital resolutions are:

• Reduce my screen time (25%)
• Use stronger passwords (13%)
• Use the internet to make my money go further (12%)
• Be more mindful of the links I click on (10%)
• Not fall asleep with my smartphone (6%)
  

Digital resolutions were most popular in Spain and Italy (60% and 58% respectively), where respondents said they were committed to making one. People in France (35%), the UK (39%), Germany (42%) and the Netherlands (43%) were less keen. More men said they would make a digital resolution (50%) than women (43%), and younger respondents are more inclined to do so than older respondents (64% of Generation Z compared to 29% of Baby Boomers). 

Stronger passwords, meet up and be more mindful
When it comes to digital privacy and online habits in the year ahead, in addition to using stronger passwords, the top resolutions for 2024 focused on developing better email management (16%), doing more backups. Changing cookie settings (12%) will also play a greater role in our corporate and personal worlds. In the UK, 24 percent said they would use stronger passwords, compared to France and Germany (19%). In Germany, respondents placed proportionally more importance on backing up more regularly (19% versus 10% in the UK, France, and the Netherlands, 11% in Italy and 12% in Spain).

It looks like we’ll be seeing more of each other in person in 2024, with 12 percent saying they’ll be making more of an effort to meet people in person, rather than online whether that’s for work meetings, or catching up with family and friends, while 11 percent are using their smartphone’s ‘do not disturb’ function more often. 

Mindfulness is also playing a greater role in daily life, with 10 percent unfollowing social media people and groups that don’t make them feel happy, and eight percent of users say they will increase use of wellbeing apps such as fitness and sleep trackers or meditation guides. 

“We spend more time than ever online, and, just as we like to constantly evaluate and adjust our real lives to be happier and healthier, it makes sense we do the same for our online lives. It’s heartening to see people are realising the importance of making improvements to digital life by establishing a digital detox or boundaries, decluttering files and enhancing security and privacy practices. 

“These steps can have a big impact on online safety and improve our mental health, by reducing the worry of online fraud and falling victim to scams. By being more mindful of passwords, not clicking on suspicious links or reviewing social media settings, you can create a more organized, secure, and balanced digital lifestyle. It would be wonderful for 2024 to be the safest digital year yet and for people to continue to evaluate and improve cyber safety practices.” comments David Emm, Principal Security Researcher for Kaspersky.

Kaspersky security tips for 2024
Kaspersky is encouraging people to regularly reassess and adjust their digital habits to ensure you continue to support well-being and productivity, and also challenge friends and loved ones to also make digital resolutions to support their online privacy by following these simple steps to keep their digital information private:

• Protect all devices using security solutions like Kaspersky Premium https://www.kaspersky.co.uk/premium  
• Help to secure all devices used for online transactions – banking, shopping, socialising, – by applying patches as soon as they become available.
• Use a unique, complex password for all your online accounts – e.g. with Kaspersky Password Manager https://www.kaspersky.co.uk/password-manager
• Review privacy and security settings carefully and limit what can be seen and shared.
• Disable apps and features unless in use.
• Disable tracking services and location services, and set your browser to clear cookies regularly.
• Check email addresses against services such as “Have I Been Pwned” to see if any of your digital accounts have been compromised”.

Research methodology
An online survey of 5,500 adults aged 18-64 across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands with nationally representative quotas set for gender, age and region conducted by independent market research agency, Arlington Research, between November and December 2023.