The average American now holds onto their smartphone for 29 months, according to a recent survey by Reviews.org, and that cycle is getting longer. The average was around 22 months in 2016.
While squeezing as much life out of your device as possible may save money in the short run, especially amid widespread fears about the strength of the consumer and job market, it might cost the economy in the long run, especially when device hoarding occurs at the level of corporations.
Research released by the Federal Reserve last month concludes that each additional year companies delay upgrading equipment results in a productivity decline of about one-third of a percent, with investment patterns accounting for approximately 55% of productivity gaps between advanced economies. The good news: businesses in the U.S. are generally quicker to reinvest in replacing aging equipment. The Federal Reserve report shows that if European productivity had matched U.S. investment patterns starting in 2000, the productivity gap between the U.S and European economic heavyweights would have been reduced by 29 percent for the U.K., 35 percent for France, and 101% for Germany.
PEOPLE AREN’T GIVING US MORE MONEY!
Omg the poor economy, how could those selfish Americans do that
It doesn’t cost the economy at all; great efficiency frees up resources for other purposes. The only downside is to the companies that make the devices and rely on planned obsolescence for profitability. The stock market and “the economy” are NOT synonyms.
29 months
squeezing as much life out of your device as possible
FUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUU
Last phone I had for 7 years, through a screen replacement, 2 battery replacements, and a switch to LineageOS.
And I would not even call that “squeezing as much life out of your device as possible”.
2 phones ago I kept my phone for 6 years and it became sooo slow I had to upgrade it. Had it wasn’t for that, I’d have kept the phone longer. Last was 7 and I upgraded because someone gave me a newer phone for free. Perhaps it’s just a preference for me to keep devices until they die.
I feel you.
It made me honestly mad when I switched to Lineage and not only was everything faster, my battery life tripled.
Many people use cheap phones and used phones as well sometimes, and buying another one is nearly more interesting than repairing them
The phone in question was midrange. Sure, not super cheap and I can see how a cheaper one would make it less attractive to repair, but still. (Plus I paid like, 50€ for the screen repair, I think?), and batteries were 15€ from eBay plus 20 minutes of my time.
But this is kinda beside the point: as long as it runs your apps, why upgrade.
I’m still on my iPhone 12 Pro (most up to date currently on the market is 17 pro). Updated from a 10 but probably didn’t need to (someone wanted my soon to be old phone). Upgraded to 10 from a 6 Plus only because I broke the camera. I think the last time I was on 1-2 year update cycle was around iPhone 5.
For me, I think once storage got to 128+ (iphone 6 onward), it became easier to hold on to the phone since storage didn’t feel as limiting. Like I can take pictures and pretty much not have to delete anything to make room to use the phone/camera.
My Pixel 6a has about 18 months of support left. I doubt I will be buying any other American based phone then so I’m seriously considering not having a smart phone. I think I have an old flip phone in the closet. It may come back into play.
That means no more Lemmy on work time :(
“The economy” can once again be replaced with “rich people’s yacht money”
Only two years? Seriously?
Why? It’s not 2010s anymore, even 5-year-old devices still get updates these days. How are people affording to drop $1K on a new phone every two years? Or maybe the problem is that they’re buying shitty cheap low-end phones that were obsolete out of the box. If you buy a good, used, last gen flagship, it’ll last you many years.
They’re getting trade-in value for their old phone, hiding part of the remainder in a carrier contract, and getting loans for the rest. It’s only $1k if you’re one of those weirdos who likes to own things.
I had my phone for 8 years until one day it bricked. That’s the only reason i got a new one about a year ago. My wife is coming up on the two year mark and is asking for a new one and i have to keep reminding her that hers is fine.
The Galaxy S3 was the best phone they ever made. SD card, removable battery, built in IR blaster… it pains me that I can’t still use it.
The S5 I believe was the last of the Samsung removable battery models, loved that phone.
Where’s that cartoon about financial news stories making much more sense if you replace the words “the economy” with “rich people’s boat money”?
This sounds a lot like something Richard Denniss would say. He wrote a book named Econobabble that explains a lot of this sort of thing.
Oh I’m sorry AI can’t buy devices, pay us bitches
Maybe the economy shouldn’t be so dependent upon disposable devices.
Yeah, my reaction was less about economics and more wondering why this wouldn’t be celebrated.
Fuck this shit. Pay us more.
Holy shit keeping a device longer than 2 years is “device hoarding” now? Thats fucking nuts.
How do you invest so much money in a device like that and not make it last? I’ve got one phone I use for work calls thats 10 years old. People are still shocked I dont even have a case on it.
Yeah, fuck that. I’ll keep my device as long as possible because of course I would! Try for five years.
“Hording”… The fucking nerve to say that… I am actually offended. Whatever happened to “recycle, reduce, reuse”? What could possible be more irresponsible than constantly replacing your devices?
When you have some free time, you might find it interesting to read about Edward Bernays.
I’ve always been aware of propaganda, but had never heard of him. Thanks for that. Was an interesting and somewhat horrifying read.
I do everything in my power to avoid ads and develop an informed opinion but there is no escaping the influence of at least some social manipulations. I suppose its easy for me to forget sometimes how much others are influenced by that too.
This is blaming consumers for companies not doing a better job at planned obsolescence.
My last phone up until a couple months ago was from 2017, apparently I am just a mega hoarder. Don’t look at the pile of miscellaneous bits of tech, the Omnisiah demands I collect the shinnies.
Honestly, if I could just upgrade the CPU and replace the battery every once in a while, is still be using a Note 3 or nexus 5. Those first few generations of notes were awesome.
When every single business is slowly getting to the point where they need you to be a consumer whore just to survive, yes.
…hands up anyone using laptops or desktops older than 15 years?.. …right here, bitches…lol…
I’ve got a “refurbished” Dell laptop that’s about 15yrs old. Some ex-corp model. 4C/8T, 16" 1900x1200-ish display, Nvidia GPU, 20G RAM, and it’s still going strong except for the battery which stopped holding a charge. I could get a new battery but I use the system rarely and just for browsing/email so running it off the AC brick is fine. It’s been running Linux Mint for as long as I can remember. My phone is a cheapo model from 2021 and it is also fine. The only reason I might replace it is if the battery tanks like with my other phones (planned obsolescence) or if I finally decide it’s mandatory to up my security/privacy game and need a phone that runs GrapheneOS, which means a Pixel. An old used one.
I got laptops from 2008 and 2013, still work just fine 😁
Yup got that too. Flipped it to Bazzite, and setting up an old laptop on Mint now too.
It’s because economists haven’t got the memo yet that informs them that smartphones have been recategorized as, “durable goods”.
Proper headline: Economy sucks, inflation is higher than ever, so people have to hold onto their devices longer.
But you guys not buying new phones is reducing productivity by a third of a percent! Think of the potential losses!
