Losing or breaking your phone. It happens to the best of us (as evidenced just last week in our senior tech writer’s post detailing the struggles of living without a smartphone), and it sure does stink when it does.
Some of us have phone insurance that will cover a limited number of misfortunes that might befall our phones in the two years between our upgrades. Others do not and have had to come to terms with the unpleasantness that is paying full retail price for a phone. Any way you slice it, it is not fun losing or breaking a phone, especially when considering the ongoing hassle it causes.
A recently published article in CNN Tech explored a new trend some claim is emerging wherein which young people have two phones, one they use for everyday life (their expensive smartphone), and one they take along with them to a bar (usually a very simple feature phone).
Per CNN, “some young adults are so fond of their expensive smartphones that they take a cheaper backup phone with them to bars and leave their fancier phones at home where they are safe from spilled vodka tonics, pickpockets, and uncoordinated drunk people.” At least that’s what the consumer behaviorists are saying.
CNN reporters went out on a busy weekend night in San Francisco to test this theory and see if anyone was actually carrying a “bar phone” and why.
Fortunately (or unfortunately for the consumer behaviorists), they were unable to find anyone who had a cheap feature phone as a second device. They also could not find anyone who knew someone who engaged in this sort of behavior.
They did find several people who actually had two smartphones (one for work use, one for personal) who were checking both devices for personal and professional updates.
One of the surveyed respondents was quoted saying: “If you’re not ready to take ownership of it, don’t buy it.” Smartphones, like many expensive but satisfying elements of life, require a degree of responsibility that is not for everyone.
Perhaps if smartphone users can’t reasonably care for their phones, regardless of the situation they find themselves in, they simply shouldn’t own one.
