Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it's costing the economy
www.cnbc.com
Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever before, and while it may be consumer smart, it comes at a cost to work productivity and the U.S. economy.

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.

  • octobob@lemmy.ml
    1·
    11 days ago

    29 months is long? What good for “the economy”? New phone every year?

    I kept my last phone (pixel 3A) for 6 years. Only got rid of it when it finally stopped charging.

  • rothaine@lemmy.zip
    1·
    11 days ago

    Maybe “the economy” should give some more money back to working class people, ya dingdongs

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
      1·
      11 days ago

      Great! Now we’re getting blamed for wrecking the economy because we aren’t spending enough of our minimum wages on $2000 phones often enough.

      Couldn’t have anything to do with redistributing over a trillion dollars a year to Sociopathic Oligarchs, and not taxing them. How about forcing them to give each one of us a new phone every year. Or how about this: Just give us health care, like every other country in the world.

      Not buying enough new phones? Go fuck yourself.

  • Screen_Shatter@lemmy.world
    1·
    12 days ago

    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.

    • Bakkoda@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      12 days ago

      When every single business is slowly getting to the point where they need you to be a consumer whore just to survive, yes.

    • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      12 days ago

      It’s because economists haven’t got the memo yet that informs them that smartphones have been recategorized as, “durable goods”.

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
      1·
      11 days ago

      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?

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      12 days ago

      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.

      • Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        1·
        12 days ago

        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.

        • Zoot@reddthat.com
          1·
          11 days ago

          I still miss my Note 3 and Note 5. I’m using the Note 9 now, and even that is starting to become unbearably slow. Thankfully the battery is still good enough for me, but even Firefox constantly freezing is ridiculous

    • arin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 days ago

      Consumers are being Anticapitalist! This is not a recession! We didn’t fire half the country for people to spend less!! Think about our growing profits!!