[Themaintainers] NYTimes calls out Innovation Dellusion!

[Nathan Proctor]

A great Right to Repair / Maintainers piece by Brian Chen, who we should
cultivate for our network!

*Smartphones Are Like Cars. So Why Don’t We Maintain Them?*

Regularly replacing our phones takes a toll on our wallets and the
environment. We should instead take care of them as we do our cars.

A smartphone is not all that different from a car. When parents deem their
children old and responsible enough, they may let them get one. There
are several
ways to pay
<https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/technology/personaltech/lease-a-smartphone-or-buy-it-the-pros-and-cons.html>
for
it: buying outright, financing or leasing. And like cars, phone models have
become nearly indistinguishable from one year to the next.

Yet there’s one major difference between cars and phones, or at least in
how people treat them. Car owners take their vehicle to a shop for service
and repairs as needed. But when something as basic — and inexpensive —
as a phone’s
battery
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/technology/personaltech/iphone-battery-slowing-down.html>
begins
to degrade, people generally replace the entire device.

“Everyone knows the tires on your car wear out and you need to replace
them,” said Kyle Wiens, the chief executive of iFixit, a site that
publishes instructions for repairing electronics. “There’s a psychological
delusion around not having to do maintenance on electronics like we do with
cars.”

As a result, the average amount of time that people own a car before
replacing it, about eight years, dwarfs the length of time before a phone
upgrade, about three and a half years. But with some care, the life of a
good phone can be stretched to six years.


Replacing phones often is costly to our wallets but even more so to the
environment. The manufacturing of a phone, which is composed of at least 70
materials, is energy intensive and often takes place in countries where
electricity production results in high carbon emissions, according to
industrial design experts.

We should pause and ask why we upgrade our phones before we need to.

It turns out there’s a wealth of research in this area. Some elements —
such as the high cost of doing some repairs — are out of our control. But a
big reason is purely behavioral. Understanding the psychology of why we
default to replacing phones can go a long way toward modifying our habits
to save money and reduce our consumption, academics say.

A 2021 study by Delft University of Technology
<https://www.tudelft.nl/en/> surveyed
617 people in Western Europe who had recently replaced their smartphones
and other products. It asked how long they had held on to their last phone
before replacing it and their reason for upgrading; people with broken or
malfunctioning phones were asked whether they had considered repair.

The most common reason given for replacing a phone was a loss in
performance, such as slower software or a degraded battery. Only 30 percent
of those who said they had a partly malfunctioning phone (like a battery
that depletes quickly) said they had considered repairing it.

The second most common reason given for replacing a phone was simply
feeling that it was time to buy a new one.

Ruth Mugge, a design professor at Delft and an author of the study, said
there was a misperception among people that three and a half years was as
long as a phone could last — even among people whose phones were still
working beyond that time.

This belief, she said, is shaped by an environment that triggers an urge to
upgrade. One is the marketing push from phone carriers, which send emails
reminding you to trade in your old phone for credit toward a new one.
Another is peer pressure, as friends and colleagues replace their phones
every few years.

“If you keep it for a long time, people might find you a bit strange,” Dr.
Mugge said.

The other driver toward upgrades is tougher to grapple with: There are few
incentives for people to do repairs. That’s because phones, tightly sealed
up with glue and tiny screws, are difficult for the average person to fix,
and parts can be expensive.

A study by Consumer Reports found that people want to fix their phones when
they break, but that they face obstacles
<https://www.consumerreports.org/consumer-rights/people-want-to-get-phones-appliances-fixed-but-often-cant-a1117945195/>.
Among people who said their phone had started breaking down in the last
five years, 25 percent tried to get the phone fixed but ended up replacing
it, while only 16 percent had the phone repaired. The rest kept using the
phone without trying to repair it or just replaced it.

So what to do? For starters, you can treat your phone as if it were more
like your car. If your phone is still mostly working, you can take care of
it by doing basic maintenance like replacing its battery.

Phones lack the helpful reminders that mechanics provide to car owners,
like the sticker showing the date of the next oil change, but you can do
this yourself. Set up a calendar event to bring your phone to a repair shop
for a fresh battery every three years, which is usually when the battery
loses its vitality, causing the phone to shut off after a few hours (and,
perhaps not coincidentally, when people believe their phones are wearing
out).

You can also create an annual calendar reminder to do a phone checkup. That
could involve simple steps like purging apps and photos you no longer need
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/technology/personaltech/declutter-organize-personal-tech-few-simple-steps.html>
to
free up digital storage space, which can speed the phone back up.

Another motivator may be doing the math. For about $70, you can replace
your phone’s battery at a repair shop, which makes this a relatively
cost-effective fix. Let’s say that in two years, you trade in your $800
phone for $300 in credit toward the new $800 model. That’s spending $500 on
a phone every two years; over eight years, you will have spent $2,800 on
phones. In contrast, if you hold on to an $800 phone and replace two
batteries for $70 each, you will spend $940 in the same period. For many,
especially families with multiple phones, that adds up to major savings.

You can also remind yourself to practice self-restraint when new phone ads
play on TV or appear in your inbox, said Lee Vinsel, an author of “The
Innovation Delusion
<https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/576816/the-innovation-delusion-by-lee-vinsel-and-andrew-l-russell/>,”
a book about how our obsession with the new has killed the art of
maintenance. That also includes resisting the urge to judge others who
don’t have the newest gadgets.

“A cultural shift needs to happen,” Mr. Vinsel said. “We need to stop being
seduced by the hype and just think about the larger picture, including the
environment.”

It is worth noting, however, that some common phone problems can be
impractical to fix. Case in point: When I broke my iPhone 12 screen
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/technology/personaltech/apple-repair-program-iphone.html>,
a replacement part from Apple cost about $300. If the cost of repair
approaches the price tag of a new device, buying a replacement might make
sense. (That said, I paid to repair it because I’m attached to the phone.)

But the situation for phone repairs is improving. Last year, the Federal
Trade Commission announced that it would crack down on companies that
prevented people from fixing
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/us/politics/phones-right-to-repair-FTC.html>
their
products. And a New York state law that was passed in June
<https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/S4104>, which would
require tech companies to open access to electronics repair and diagnostics
tools, awaits a signature from Gov. Kathy Hochul.

As a result of all the regulatory movement, repair is very gradually
becoming simpler. What needs to change next is our mind-set.

-- 
Nathan Proctor
Senior Director, U.S. PIRG Campaign for the Right to Repair
O: (857) 413-2534
C: (203) 522-3860
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