Asian youths are showing strong awareness of cyberrisks as devices and digital services remain front and centre in their lives, according to findings revealed in a Microsoft poll.
The online survey was conducted in September 2015 and queried 1,200 Asians aged 25 and under across 13 markets: Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, China, India, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The poll sought to uncover the digital habits of millennials in mobile-first and cloud-first countries.
There are 1.1 billion young people in Asia, which accounts for roughly 60% of the world's youth population. Inevitably, youths are driving the agenda of how Asians structure their work and their lives in an increasingly digital world.
The poll shows the pervasiveness of high-tech devices in the lives of Asian millennials. All respondents own a smartphone.
Notebooks or laptops are their choice for a full-productivity device, followed by desktop PCs and tablets.
Some 40% of respondents own a gaming console. Wearable devices are still at a nascent stage of adoption, with just 17% of respondents owning one.
The poll shows these Asian millennials are already making their own purchase decisions with all their devices. Approximately one-third of the respondents desire to purchase smartphones, followed by 19.3% and 13.3% wishing to buy laptops and tablets, respectively.
There are also key findings about what Asian millennials expect of their devices and services: youths want natural gestures with their technology -- from smartphones to notebooks, they want stylus and touch experiences embedded in their devices within six months time.
Youths also want the convenience of the cloud. Respondents want to store their files in the cloud for easy access across devices and locations.
In addition, youths want a safer digital environment as a majority of respondents dislike the lack of privacy and security in their digital lives. In fact, 70% are willing to pay to overcome their current privacy and security challenges.
Furthermore, youths want simplicity in an increasingly complex technology environment. Some 610 respondents felt one of the biggest challenges in their digital lives is having too many passwords to remember.
The poll also showed 70% of youths believe technology can solve social issues such as equality, preventing diseases and protecting the environment.
By 2020, respondents would like to see their devices have holographic displays, virtual personal assistants, brain-computer interface, gesture controls and ability for software to conquer language barriers.
"Over 110 million devices already use Windows 10, including 12 million business PCs -- a faster adoption rate than Windows 7 or Windows 8," said Guenter Weimer, general manager for Windows at Microsoft.