Rattle those keys
Before you read this article, get out your keyring. How many keys do you have on there?
Insurance company eSure surveyed a thousand people in Britain and asked them to pull out their keys and count how many were on their keyring. The average number was eight for men and ten for women, or nine keys on average overall. The next question was to ask people to identify what those keys are for, and amazingly, on average, people could only remember what six of the nine were for. The other three mysterious keys were carried around in case they were needed someday.
The survey revealed that if someone's keys are stolen, then 90% of people will have the locks changed on their front door as a precaution. However, if the keys are merely thought to have been lost somewhere, only 10% of people bother to have any locks changed. Worryingly, 5% of people put an address tag on their keys, thinking it will help get them back if they lose them.
Now I'm sure most of us reading this think carrying nine keys around with us is silly, but then I asked myself how many computer password keys I carry around in my head, and I reckon it is more than nine. And then there are all the passwords for shopping sites like Amazon which insist I have to go through the inconvenience of registering and choosing yet another obscure password if I want to purchase something from them. On top of that, I have to memorise two PIN codes for my debit card and credit card. I actually have a third card which I've never been able to use because I've never managed to remember its pin code, but rather like a forgotten key on a keyring, it sits in my wallet alongside the other two.
29th March 2011