Why Making a Back-Up of Your Smartphone Is So Important

Smartphones have opened up a world of convenience and opportunity for us. Who would have thought you could have the ability to access websites, take and save photos, listen to music and have every important number available at the touch of a button? All on a device that fits easily into your pocket!

But, with great power comes great responsibility, and as such, it’s important we take responsibility for our information and data, that we love having at our fingertips.

A BACKSTORY

The necessity of having a back-up became apparent to me far too late. A few years ago, I was at a Good Friday Appeal charity event being held at Bounce Inc (a trampoline park). Myself and a group of friends were there to play trampoline dodgeball to raise money for the appeal. Whilst it sounds like an unusual way to contribute to charity, we all had an excellent time and it was great to see the camaraderie amongst competitors for this great cause. After the event, all the competitors went back into the locker room to collect their bags. As I was looking through my bag, a sinking feeling set it – I couldn’t find my phone. I looked up and saw the same crestfallen expression on about 20 other people’s faces. Someone had come through the locker room during the event, and had taken the smartphones from a number of people’s bags.

Whilst the idea of having to replace my phone was frustrating (and expensive), it wasn’t the worst part of the situation. It was realising that I hadn’t made a back-up of my smartphone. Hundreds of photos were gone. All of the contacts that I had collected across the years weren’t saved anywhere else. I had notes and memos saved on the phone that were useful, that I no longer had access to.

Stepping back from this unhappy story – it’s often said that unless you have a back-up of your smartphone, it’s almost like the information and data on it doesn’t exist. Having the device stolen isn’t the only way you could lose your photos, contacts, calendars, notes or music. Perhaps the smartphone accidentally gets misplaced, or the device has a hardware failure internally. Or – and you may know someone this has happened to – the smartphone goes for an unexpected swim. While many newer smartphones have some level of water resistance, very few are completely water-proof, and it is definitely not something one wants to learn the hard way!