Apparently, people are losing the habit of charging their phones at night. Of course, the heavy usage of their phone plays an important part too. So why are they not charging their phones at night when they are sleeping? The common answer I got is that they always text their friends till they fall asleep.
As a person who are deeply into mobile phone technology, I know that phones, especially flagship phones, are getting bigger and bigger batteries. According to gsmarena.com*, the flagship phones released since 2013 can last at least 60 hours in a single charge on normal usage. Normal usage is defined as 1 hour of watching videos, 1 hour of talking on phone, 1 hour of surfing the net every 24 hours. That's 3 hours of battery-sapping activities per day, and the phone should still last you at least two and a half day before you need to charge it up.
Remember the days (just 3 to 4 years ago) when flagship phones only had around 1200 to 1500mAH of battery (iPhone 4 has 1420mAH)? We never had problem with battery life, and didn't need a portable charger. Now the flagships all have around 2500 to 3000mAH (Galaxy S5 has 2800mAH), and yet users need to carry a portable charger with them. Mathematically speaking, we are spending approximately four to five times more time using our mobile phone as compared to 4 years ago.
I started to wonder is it the increase in usage of mobile phone that prompted manufacturers to create phones with bigger batteries, or manufacturers creating phones with bigger batteries spoiled consumers to use their mobile phones more often? I am more inclined to think that it is the consumers' increasing usage that prompted manufacturers to create phones with bigger batteries.
Too often we have moments in our daily life that we cannot do anything but to wait, such as waiting for elevators, waiting for public transport, waiting for food to be served, travelling time etc. These are time when people have nothing to do, and mobile phone, or more specifically smartphones, are the perfect solution. It allows people to entertain themselves during these moments, be it playing games, surfing the net, or browsing through social media platforms to see updates of their friends.
Other than that, smartphones gradually became the "excuse" to not talk to each other. There are moments when we have nothing to talk about to another person. In the past, there will be an awkward silence, and everyone will be waiting for someone else to break the silence. Right now, when we have nothing to talk about, we just start using our smartphones. Everyone will be occupied and no one will notice the awkward silence. The word "Phubbing" was created to describe such an act.
Of course, we have the all-popular application known as "Whatsapp" taking over the traditional SMS. As of 22 April 2014, Whatsapp has more than 500 million active users monthly. Whatsapp has more functions than our traditional SMS, which makes majority of the consumer prefer using Whatsapp over SMS. However, one of the only few downside of Whatsapp as compared to SMS is that it requires internet connection, and it doesn't take a genius to know that using internet connection, be it 3G/4G or Wi-fi, is more taxing on the battery of the phone.
There are many more reasons why consumers are using their mobile phones more than ever, and it doesn't seem like the reliance on mobile phones will go south in anytime soon. It is exactly this behaviour that prompted manufacturers to make bigger batteries for phone. It is exactly this behaviour that popularised portable charger. Therefore, I believe that it is the behaviour of consumers that drives product. What about you?
*gsmarena.com is a leading website that provides news and detailed reviews on mobile phones
-The god has spoken
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