55% youngsters think a powerbank is their most prized possession

That gadgets have come to control our lives is obvious. That they have come to define us is borne out by the latest Youth Survey by HT and MaRS. Nearly half of all respondents -- 48.1% -- say you can tell a lot about a person by the gadgets they keep.

Naturally, there is a rush to buy gadgets. About a third of both genders -- 32.9% men and 31.6% women -- say they rush out to buy whenever a new gadget comes out.

Interestingly, in spite of the keenness to buy a gadget and their perceived role in defining us, there is reasonably high awareness of the adverse fallouts of owning them. As much as 33.6% men say extensive use of gadgets is making the youth unfriendly, and 32`% of the women agree. What’s more, 38.9% men say gadgets make the youth more prone to lifestyle diseases, a view shared by 29.4% of the women.

However, gadgets are not the outright winner here. On all shopping platforms, especially e-commerce, they are in constant battle with clothes for the share of a person’s wallet.

Gadgets are the winner online. Given that they are standardised -- if you have seen one iPhone 7, you have seen them all – they outshine most other categories on e-commerce sites. However, in this survey, clothes win: 76.2% of the men and 80.2% of the women say they spend more on clothes than on gadgets.

A new element thrown up by this survey is the addiction to power banks, those little portable boxes that charge your devices when there is no plug point or charger at hand. Of the men, 59.1% say they own a power bank. The percentage is 50.7% for women. Of those that own a power bank, 31.9% men and 27.8% women say they are very addicted to it, whereas 47.7% men and 50.4% women say they are somewhat addicted. That is something for battery researchers to ponder over.

Can you judge a person by his favourite gadget? Take our poll here

Read more Youth Survey stories here.