Is technology pushing us further into debt?
Could our obsession with technology be to blame for the increasing debt problems in the UK?
Strolling around the home with our mobile phones, plasma TVs and other mod cons will raise our debt levels to around £200 per year.
Modern appliances have been proven to cost far more to run than their older predecessors. A modern flat-screen plasma TV will cost a householder three times more than a conventional cathode-ray tube TV of the 1970s and a digital radio powers up to seven times more electricity than an analogue radio. Even if you take into account the change of lifestyle costs and wages since the 1970s, that's still a substantial change in modern life that could be a key factor as to why so many more people are getting larger loans, struggling with debt and becoming bankrupt.
The Brits fork out over £3 billion per year to power their latest electrical gadgets, which equates to around £125 per household. These prices are set to increase and in ten years time, the average family will consume over £4.6 billion of electricity.
Lifestyles have changed dramatically which has resulted in higher energy usage. Even listening to a radio has become costly, as people choose to listen through a computer or TV rather than a conventional radio. Some digital radios power more electricity when on stand-by than they do actually transmitting.
In the past, families had one cathode-ray TV taking centre stage in the living room but nowadays, it is the norm to have two or three TV’s, at least two video recorders, two or three music systems, two laptops, a cordless phone, one or two digital cameras, a camcorder and at least three mobile phones.
Customers are fooled into believing that modern day gadgets are energy efficient but this clearly isn’t the case and if the majority are left on standby, the nation could expect a rise in debt to the region of £600m and beyond.
