With over 3.5 billion users worldwide, smartphones have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. While the number of users keep increasing, the lifetimes of smartphones are getting shorter and newer models are released twice as fast. From laptops to printers, when everyday digital products breakdown, they are difficult (sometimes impossible) to fix. Spare parts and repair manuals are hard to come by; phones are assembled in complex ways to keep end-users out; and legalities to prevent repair are being created in the name of privacy and cybersecurity. At the end of it all, consumers find it is easier to replace than it is to repair. This is not a coincidence, in fact, it is a strategy deliberately used by manufacturers to ensure that consumers keep buying their products. This strategy is called ‘‘Planned Obsolescence’’.
With planned obsolescence, manufacturers ensure that the current version of a smartphone will become out of date or useless within a known period. This deliberate move guarantees that consumers will seek replacements and therefore, increase demand. In a generation that has become addicted to fast-moving goods, very few people even realise that their products become obsolete on a set date, or within a specific time. We just use products and discard them without giving any thoughts as to where those discarded items end up.
This is exactly what is happening in the smartphone industry. We buy phones, then we use them for an average of 21 months (according to statistics from Counterpoint Research) and then we replace them for various reasons which could be phones breaking down and costly repairs, phones not supporting newer software updates or plain old marketing tactics that are used to brainwash us into wanting newer models when the old models work just fine.
Today, smartphone manufacturers achieve obsolescence by limiting a product’s ability to withstand normal wear-and-tear, introducing new “superior” models, and intentionally designing a product to cease proper function within a specific time frame. In the long run, consumers spend more money on smartphones and the discarded ones end up in landfills where they are hardly recycled or sent to Africa in the guise of used phones when they’re mostly e-waste.
Recently, more people are becoming aware of their consumption habits and realising that things just don’t last like they used to in the past. They’re also becoming aware of the impact of consumerism on the planet and are now asking that their smartphones and other digital devices last longer and are repairable. The notion that consumers have the right to modify or repair their own electronic devices isn’t new, but it’s one many manufacturers like Apple have actively and incessantly lobbied against. In a recent turn of events, Apple announced early November, A self-service program allowing customers to access spare parts.
The good news is there are organisations actively fighting against planned obsolescence and demanding for consumer’s right to repair.
In Nigeria, China-made phones dominate the smartphone market and boasts a huge consumer base due to variety and cost. Unfortunately, most of these phones do not also last very long and because they’re cheaper than other luxury smartphone brands, a lot of people do not notice how expensive buying China brand phones get in the long run. Or the rate at which we discard the phones in favour of buying new ones, adding to the e-waste pile. China is notorious for obsolete products and when it comes to phones, higher standards need to be met to fight planned obsolescence.
The Right to Repair Movement, which started in 2013 with the founding of the Digital Right to Repair Coalition, demands for legislation that requires manufacturers to provide information to allow anyone to repair consumer electronics like computers and cell phones. The movement have since spread across the globe and many governments are considering signing it into law.
The Right to Repair goes beyond fighting for the repairability or reusability of devices though, it also fights against planned obsolescence by asking that manufacturers, from the ideation stage, design smartphones to last longer and with sustainable easy-to-get materials to minimize the number of repairs that would have to be done in the long run, and also the pressure being put on the planet from sourcing materials.
Ultimately, it is up to us consumers to change our lifestyle of waste and overconsumption and demand more from smartphone manufacturers. No one can do that for us. Whether that means being able to repair devices with ease or to stop locking us out of our smartphones with complex designs, these manufacturers can do better.
Support the Right to Repair movement today so that we can keep as many smartphones as possible out of landfills tomorrow!
By: Muneerah Abdulrahman is the Programme Manager, Right to Repair at PolicyLab Africa