Cardiff celebrated Halloween and Face Your Fears Day last month, but what are we actually afraid of?
Heights, snakes and public speaking remain three of Britainās greatest fears, with more than a fifth of the population considering themselves āvery afraidā of each.Ā
However modern day phobias are becoming more predominant. According to the British Heart Foundation nearly a fifth of UK citizens are afraid of their phone running out of battery (19%), missing a flight (18%), sending a text to the wrong person (15%), or having no Wi-Fi access (15%).
In fact, nearly half (45%) of people revealed they would rather hold a spider for an hour than have no WIFI for a month.
From the more traditional fears to those fuelled by modern technology, what scares us?
Esther Fuge, 27, Circus Artist
Bees.Ā “My brother got stung on the throat, it swelled up and he almost died from choking. I was there when it happened. These days just the sound gets me.”
Rating people.Ā “Already in China thereās a system for rating people socially. I can imagine there being a separate outcast society for people with low ratings. We are treating people like theyāre not people.”
Mariana Birchley, 52, Restaurant owner
Brexit.Ā “Iām afraid of what itās going to do to the country, itās going to affect a lot of people in ways they are unaware of. Taxes and prices are going up, there are things we wonāt be able to get anymore.”
Cold calls.Ā “Iām afraid if I get a phone call and I donāt recognise the number, even if they say I am from BT I donāt know for sure. Itās the same thing with emails and itās happening more and more.”
Thomas Lupton, 30, Promoter and Professional Uni-cycler
Dying childless.Ā “Iām afraid Iāll get to 80 and not have a family, itās one of the points of life. I have a deep urge to leave something beyond my own mortal, temporary time frame.”
Social media and artificial intelligence.Ā “We donāt know how artificial intelligence makes decisions and the algorithms of Google, Facebook and Twitter are in the process of programming the next generation.”
Kevin Francis, 51, Builder
Change.Ā “Thereās a lot of uncertainty in society today, in jobs and crime and so forth. News amplifies that fear, itās always doom and gloom. They never tell you when someone found their lost puppy!”
Misuse of technology.Ā “Itās created a system where everyone sits in their bedroom on their laptops or phones, in the past people had more time for each other.”
James Mutyamuizi, 34, IT Engineer
Heights.Ā “I canāt stand them. I was meant to go on this bungee jump ride in Las Vegas, I wanted to do it but then I got up there and looked⦠I wonāt even go near the windows of a tall building, it could fall through, anything could happen!”
Privacy online.Ā “Iām always fearful about how Iām connecting to the internet. Iām one of those people who will put something to cover up their webcam, just to make sure. As long as your device is connected to a public network in theory anyone can get to it.”
Lucy Turtill, 29, Teacher
Drowning.Ā “I get a horrible feeling from films where theyāre in small spaces underwater, itās the idea of being trapped there.”
Phone surveillance.Ā “Iām paranoid that weāre being watched through our mobile phones. Sometimes I say something and later that day an advert pops up for the thing Iāve been talking about.”