Thought-Provoking Thursday: How Much Is Your Smartphone Worth?
The list price of your iPhone, Android, or BlackBerry might read $99.99, $199.99, or even $249.99, but the chances are pretty high that your device has become a lot more valuable to you since you started using it. To some of you, it might even feel priceless. After all, how do you place a value on having your whole world — and the whole World Wide Web — right at your fingertips?
According to a new study conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of ClickSoftware, calculating that value actually quite easy: figure out the amount of time you save by using various apps and features on your smartphone, and multiply that time by what an hour of your time is worth. By ClickSoftware’s estimation, the average smartphone user saves 88 minutes a day by using their phone for tasks and information; that same user makes an average of $22 per hour. Worked out over the course of a year, that smartphone is worth a whopping $12,000.
Factoring into those 88 minutes of daily time-savings: the users surveyed said that they save an average of 35 minutes per day by emailing on their phones (rather than waiting to use a computer), 17 minutes per day by using a weather app and 23 minutes per day by using a calendar function. Of course, the time (and money) saved by using these apps and features like instant (or “push”) notifications could be negated if your usage incurs massive data overage charges.
“You should be smart about how you manage your smartphone, including your data plan and how you choose and use apps,” said Gil Bouhnick, vice president of mobility at ClickSoftware. Bouhnick recommends being selective about which apps and services you use over a cell network versus which ones you use over wifi (which doesn’t eat up data), as well as which apps feed you constant updates.
“Turn off push notifications for apps such as weather if you are not traveling” and do not need constant weather updates, Bouhnick said. “On many phones users can set a ‘home’ city location and the weather will only pull the data for that city when a user checks—which may only need to be once a day.”
Bouhnick was careful to note that your data might not be the only thing at stake with constant smartphone usage.
“There is also a question of balance. The more you use push notifications, the less you have a real life,” he said. “You need to start thinking, ‘what will I do when I get 10 or 20 notifications [at once]?’ Which one will be really helpful for you? Which one will be a burden?”
For users looking to maximize their smartphone’s potential without letting it take over their lives, Bouhnick recommends two specific areas to focus on: map or GPS apps, and calendar apps.
“Add voice controls and assistants such as Apple’s Siri, and getting directions while you are driving becomes a task that only takes a few seconds, as opposed to pulling over and asking for directions,” he said. “Although on the downside, reading a map may become a lost skill.”
As for calendars, he recommends not just uploading your own to-do list, but that of your entire family. “This is another time saving no-brainer,” he said. “Depending on the app a consumer uses, it can quickly sync multiple schedules and inputs and devise a master calendar—think kids’ soccer games, mom’s work schedule and dad’s meeting schedule.”
Finally, Bouhnick urges smartphone users to remember that just because our phones might be worth $12,000 per year doesn’t mean we should use them for every single task in our lives.
“There’s a point at which it becomes less productive,” he said. “Sometimes you get a question that requires typing, research, or looking at a map; you cannot really do that from your phone. Eventually there is a limit to the things a smartphone can help you be more productive with.”
