Re_Pair
Do you really need the latest smartphone or laptop?
The average smartphone is used for only 2.5 years before being thrown away; technology experts invariably advise that a good laptop should last between “three to five years”.
Actually, most of us are doing much the same on our devices as we did 10 years ago - maybe watching more video – but otherwise, very little has changed.
Yet every new device requires huge amounts of precious minerals – lithium, rare earths, cobalt, nickel and copper - all of which cause human and environmental harm when they are mined. And every device needs a huge amount of energy to make, to package and to ship.
When you buy a new devices, your old device will probably become more e-waste. We each produce 7.2 tonnes of it every year. E-waste is growing five times faster than our capacity to recycle it, so much of it gets shipped off to huge toxic e-waste dumps, mostly to countries and communties that simply can’t afford to refuse it.
Of course, one of the main reasons we buy new devices is because the technology industry needs us to; smartphones drive the immense profits of companies like Apple and Samsung, Android is a critical stronghold of Google’s sprawling online empire.
No wonder then, that smartphones are often not supported after as little as three years, leaving many of us with little choice but to “upgrade”.
But is it really an upgrade?
Or is a faster phone or laptop just going to make us more anxious, more quickly?
If you’re in any major city, you really do have a choice.
In many places now there’s a flourishing network of repair shopes, cafes and upgrade workshops where you can bring your old laptop and smartphone back to life.
There are many more workshops and networks, not just for digital devices, but for repairing all electrical gadgets, and for clothes as well.
Berlin has it’s own repair shop map - Remap
You can find everyhwere at www.ifixit.com and https://repair.eu/
Free and open source software is straightforward to install on virtually any Windows laptop and many phones – especially with some free expert help at a drop-in workshop.
A laptop or smartphone that runs open source software works just as well as any other device, sometimes much better.
It will work for many more years – the hardware can actually last for decades.
By making a real upgrade, you’ll also be taking back control of the technologies in your life.
And you will be stepping out of a toxic global supply chain, with horrendous mining conditions at one end and poisonous e-waste dumps at the other, all of it just to keep you constantly connected.
You’ll be making space for a healthier digital life for you, and for countless other people who are also trapped in our digital – and very material - web.
1 in a series of 9 from Connection Matters, a series of banners on rethinking our relationship to technology at Invisible Networks exhibition.
If you want to find out more about the project, please get in touch