ONE in four Cypriots — 178,000 people — owns a mobile phone, according to latest figures from the department of statistics.
And 81 per cent of households have at least one car, while seven per cent have three or more, the report for 1999 said.
But though the vitality of our consumer spending is clearly a sign of prosperity, psychologists warn it is rarely a sign of happiness.
"The use of a mobile phone and private car may be an indication of financial development, but not of quality of society," Psychologist and Intercollege lecturer Dr. Stavros Stavrou said yesterday.
He quoted from American colleague David G Myers, who said in a recent book that "the richer the Americans get, the less content they seem to be with their lives."
Myers said the quality of life enjoyed by most Americans today was better than ever, with incomes up, prices stable and unemployment low.
At the same time however, "divorces have doubled since 1960, teenage suicides have tripled, violent crime has quadrupled, the number of prison inmates increased fivefold and the number of people suffering from depression multiplied by 10."
Stavrou also noted the comments of another American psychologist Barry Schwartz: it is not people themselves who are at fault, but a political system that allows them to "chase after money and store up material goods with the result of social values being worn down."
Stavrou said that besides the traffic and environmental problems caused by the number of cars, they also encouraged social rivalry: "competitiveness as well as basic capitalist values are enforced with the use of a private vehicle."
"Because of financial well-being, the sale of private cars is continually rising, reaching half a million. The family car is history: now there are only individual cars and this is why every new house is built with room for two to four cars."
The Statistics and Research Department’s Report also showed that 97 per cent of the island’s homes had a colour television and 99 per cent a refrigerator.
In addition, the report revealed that only seven per cent of the population paid rent, with the remainder owning their homes.
