Nixta Sinks

Too real to feel real.

It's utterly crazy. How many cellphones do you think are sold in the UK each day? I don't know either. But let's assume that 1/10th of the population has a plan that upgrades them every year. That's 6 million cellphones a year, or 18,000ish a day. Another way to look at that is there are roughly 18,000 cellphones decomissioned every day (BIG assumptions here - 1/10th of pop - perhaps very high, and that the market is saturated - perhaps truer).

Let's divide by 2 for safety. 9,000 batteries and LCD screens, the vast majority of which probably still work just fine. Each day. In the US there are some 300m people, but cellphone saturation is probably much lower.

Who really knows what the numbers are here? Oh, Chris Jordan does. 426,000 EVERY DAY. 120 million a year. Over one third of all americans get a new phone each year. I wonder where he gets his stats, but even if it's only half true, it's revolting. There's no reason to believe the UK is any better - my estimates above would go from 9,000 to about 70,000. Ouch.

While on the subject, take some time to scroll through Chris Jordan's fantastic Running The Numbers pieces.

What, no rapist (image TSF).

There're two things of note there. The first is Apple's/Jobs' iPod Lifespan syndrome spreading through the gadget marketplace. It's quite amazing how accepting people are of their $400 devices crapping out after just two years because the new ones look so much better, behave better, store so much more even though the justification for the original device hasn't changed. And I'm guilty of that. I've just bought an iPod Touch. I have an iPod Nano (which was admittedly gifted to me by the ever generous and prolific TSF - it's red, you see, back when they didn't have red ones). I still have a 4th Gen 20Gb iPod (two, in fact, both of which had crapped out completely, and both of which seems to work again somehow now that I've tried them for the first time in over a year) and a couple of 1st Gen iPod Shuffles (both of which still work), and a 1st Gen iPod which just sits like a stoneage relic at the bottom of a pile of cables and floppy discs although I'm now attempting to revive it for nostalgia's sake, but although it works, no computer I have recognises it - iTunes conspiracy?

When your iPod battery dies after 2 years, it no longer an outrage or even (mostly) a pain in the arse. Rather it's a convenient excuse to get that latest iPhone or iPod Touch. Come on. 2 years? 3 years? What seems right to you? 7 or 8 years might be acceptable.

Gadgets have become disposable. You wouldn't throw away a $300 umbrella (I know, I have one). It's a lifetime purchase. So why is an iPod any different? These figures on the carelessness of people's cell phone ownership as as depressing as Chris Jordan's pieces. 855,000 cellphones dropped in the toilet each year?! In the UK alone?!! Better trouser-pockets are needed, methinks. Topshop - you have a lot to answer for.

But this is about cellphones and the lifespan issue is made even more laughable by the subsidised "freeness" of phones in the UK.

In the US you still have to pay something for your phone, even though you are subjected to all the same constraints that justify a free phone in the UK. A restrictive contract, fartingly pointless cashback offers that never materialise (and that most people are too lazy to follow up on), and some constraints that are laughable, including phones that are not just months but years behind the rest of the world, even if they're sold for use on a GSM network. Apple (again) has changed that and shaken things up with the iPhone. Now I'm really interested to see how the market adopts it in the UK (once the initial furore has subsided) where people are most definitely not used to paying for their phones.

Either way, every new release of technology sends a new wave of money to the tech manufacturers. It makes me quite dizzy, and sick because it's so rarely deserved from an innovative perspective - it's a drip feed - there are always more lemmings nearing the cliff's edge. I freely admit I've not been strong enough to fight it. I've indulged in it. It's been a disease with me at times. I'd be just as happy if the iPod Touch didn't exist and I hadn't spent $400 on it. Buying patterns are so different now. In today's world debt is not a source of shame but a matter of course. For the last few years I have hand-wavingly dismissed debt-based societies (specifically the US and UK) as untenable and perhaps the current uncertainties in the US markets will alter things a little. I still believe that Brits in general are living well beyond their means and using the cash they don't own to mask all sorts of insecurities and uncertainties (binge-drinking is as much a function of new-found short-term affluence as it is of the British propensity to find escape in the bottom of a bottle); entirely the result of concerted long-term marketing trends imported from the US. It's worked very well. People are dependent. Entirely dependent now. We're all junkies. We're all Jonesing after the Joneses.

Back to the point though. No-one repairs things any more. No-one borrows from a library (if only there were a gadget-library). Of course it's not all Apple's fault. People were replacing year-old Palm devices with new iPaqs when Apple was still wallowing in its Jobsless years. Jobs has just taken the trend away from overweight nerds in CompUSA eager to balance their belt-based gadget collection and given it to the Burberry masses who need a belt that matches their gym outfit and fits around their arm.

I would not part with my iPod Touch though, despite my disgust. I guess I still have the disease even if I feel I may be getting it under control (I still haven't bought an iPhone - my AT&T scars are still too raw).

Labels: Cellphone, Environment, Mobile, Recycle, Waste