You’re secretly being trained to break your iPhone on purpose
Buying a new iPhone whenever a new one is released would sure help Apple's bottomline, but it's not so nice on your wallet. Of course, it's slightly easier to justify to yourself when you're forced to upgrade your phone when it's broken.
But what if you're "accidentally" breaking your phone, on purpose, to justify the upgrade?
According to a recent study, that's exactly what we're doing. A recent Columbia Business School study found that people are bound to be more careless with their device when a new model is available.
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It's a phenomenon called the "upgrade effect," wrote Silvia Bellezza, Francesca Gina, and Josh Ackerman (respectively: an assistant professor of marketing at Columbia Business School, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan).
The study found that even when people think they aren't being careless or deliberate in breaking their phones, if there's a better version of the product available or soon to come, they're more likely to neglect their products.
The researchers supported the "upgrade effect" theory through several studies. First, they looked at a dataset of 3,000 lost iPhones, provided by IMEI Detective, and found that the number of reported lost phones increases, closer to the release date of the next model.
In the graph below, the number of iPhone 5 devices reported lost (red line) peaks around August which is close to Sept. 20, 2013 when the iPhone 5S was released. Similarly, the iPhone 6 was released on Sept. 19, 2014 close to where the number of iPhone 5S devices reported lost (blue line) peaks.
Then, there's the online survey of 602 mobile phone owners—including iPhones—which found that the availability of an upgrade would lead to product neglect. The researchers controlled for price paid, purchase method, and value depreciation.
Beyond phones, the researcher mapped the same phenomenon of "upgrade effect" for mugs, shampoo and glasses and conducted in-labs tests that showed carelessness.
The study was published in the American Marketing Association earlier this month.
Marketers have already caught onto the trend. The researchers cited a TV commercial from Virgin Mobile called "Happy Accidents," where phone owners are seen throwing their phones in the garbage, dunking them in a cocktail and leaving them in a taxi.
“We would feel guilty about upgrading without a reason—but if our current product were damaged or depleted, we’d have a justification to upgrade without appearing wasteful,” Bellezza of Columbia said in a statement. “So, we use our phone in the rain or leave our laptop behind at airport security without being aware that our carelessness has an underlying motivation.”
Apple, for one, has your neglect to thank for its profits. The majority of Apple's revenue still comes from its iPhone sales. Those sales comprised 68 percent of its $46.9 billion in revenue, the highest percentage to date, for the company's fourth quarter earnings report in October.
So, if you ever think, "Ugh, how could I leave my phone in a taxi?" or "Why did I drop it on the ground?"—blame your subconscious. Or Apple, for that hot new product.
Or both. That works, too.
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
