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.
Same. I cannot for the life of me understand why people have adopted phones as their computers - those shitty little screens and those shitty little fake keyboard and those shitty little toy CPUs. Why would anyone ever use one as their primary computer? For computing I use a real tricked-out desktop that I can upgrade and fix myself, with a 32" display and a real “ergonomic” keyboard. My phone is used for making phone calls, listening to music when I’m out of the house (I have a real audio system at home with real speakers and an amp and a real radio receiver), and reading websites and forums &etc when I’m at the gym. If I’m taking pictures I have a real DSLR for that as well as a couple of other casual-use digicams. Phones pretty much suck and I won’t be buying another until the one I have dies or becomes too much of a privacy/security risk.