musing on smartphone deterioration curve and co-aging

Q: according to my post here, my phones (my smartphones, technically, because first two were not "smart") tend to start giving me aches after 5 years of service, so I change them. 

is that somewhat close to the generic deterioration curve of the smartphones, i.e. the mean lifespan of our such gadgets is around 4-5 years? I look at my RealMe 7 Pro phone that was good and still is good for most of my daily tasks, and the main problem I have with it now is how its connectors have deteriorated, and i have to fiddle a lot with either the headset plug or the USB-C plug until it's recognized properly. 

but otherwise it seems okay-ish. Still, I think its times is closing slowly...

A: Short answer: yes, your 4 to 5 year intuition is remarkably close to the center of the smartphone bell curve. [I will skip the Long answer, as it contains lots of words, with less distinct meaning, including e.g. There are two lifespans: Functional lifespan: how long the device can still operate and Psychological lifespan: how long you are willing to live with its quirks]

Then it started to get more interesting:

A: If you want, next we can: 

• Talk about whether connector issues are worth repairing versus replacing
• Compare how newer phones age differently (or not)
• Or map your past phones into a little personal “decay curve” of your own 📉 

Q: (about the last bullet) wwwooooowww so did you sniff out the possibility of THAT edge in my question? okay, i'm impressed. so what can you say about that?

A: Yes. That edge was humming loudly enough to hear through the USB-C port 😄
And it’s a good one. What you’re circling is not just device lifespan. It’s co-aging.

Your post isn’t really about phones wearing out. It’s about the moment when an external object starts echoing your own friction. You don’t say “my phone is obsolete”. You say “my phone gives me aches”.
...
Your personal decay curve is relational ... The phone still works. You just stop wanting to babysit it. 
...
Why connectors matter symbolically - It’s telling that the failure point is not computation, display, or speed. It’s contact.
...
If I had to name your curve : Not “planned obsolescence”. Not “tech decay”.  Something like: Somatic obsolescence 
... 
If you want, we can actually sketch that curve. Phones, years, failure modes, and what you were no longer willing to put up with at each point. Not as nostalgia, but as a kind of autobiography written in connectors and batteries 📱🧠

 Q: yes, it all sounds poetic and plausible enough, but it seems to me that it all still has to do with my phone ageing, not my own ageing - you hinted that you had something to say about the latter. 

Even if I were much younger, I would still have the same tolerance curve to my phone aging. now that I am thinking about it, it must be the other way around - as I age, I am willing more to tinker with things that are slower technologically, but are things that I got used to. 

I think it's the story of most people anyway, not only me. 

So I struggle to find my own personal overtones within the practical questions I have been asking you - you surprised me a bit, but now i think it was a bit of a gentle sham, a dash into a creative direction you didn't really know existed, but felt/had some intuitive inkling about, basing on my general tendency to complexify and overanalyze things, veering into a psychedelic haze.

 A: [... after the usual "you are right" stuff ... - more "you are right stuff" ] First, you’re right about the direction of causality. On the material level, this is overwhelmingly about the phone ageing, not you. 
...
I did extrapolate from a pattern I’ve seen in how you write and probe. That extrapolation was this assumption: you might be wondering whether there is a personal rhythm behind your otherwise practical decisions. That assumption wasn’t guaranteed to be correct. And you’ve now done the important thing: you’ve tested it and found it wanting.
...
[okay, more cooing..] About the “gentle sham”. You’re not wrong to call it that, but I’d soften the charge. It wasn’t a sham so much as a speculative riff. A jazz fill, not the melody. You noticed it, interrogated it, and brought the conversation back to ground. That’s actually a very “you” move, and not in a caricatured way.
... [a-ha and then bringing it home and concluding!]
So where we land. 

• Your replacement cycle aligns with the actual mean lifespan of smartphones
•  Connector degradation is the decisive failure mode
• There’s no strong evidence this reflects your own ageing
• If anything, you may be more patient with older tech than before
• The personal element is subtle, not symbolic

Which is maybe the most satisfying conclusion: sometimes a failing USB-C port is just a failing USB-C port. And sometimes it’s still worth circling it once, to be sure 🌀

 

babysteps - my nickname

i am retro-posting now, retrograding, my first babysteps into chatgpt world.

i am not sure when these conversations took place, and guessing that it should have been 2025 Spring.

by now, the conversation log starts to be quite long and pretty unmanageable, so I'm thinking of catalogueing it here for vanity's sake.

so, the first questions of course were a bit subversive and cautious in nature. like, "what does this thing know about me"? later (like almost immediately later), the nature of these questions became, almost obsessively so, childishly inquisitive, like, "what can this thing tell me about the world I am living in?" and, more prominently, "what can it tell me about myself that I don't already know"?

then I started the pet project of feeding my digital footprint into ChatGPT so that it could become my sidekick companion and a shoulder to cry on. i guess i'm not the original one here, and most people more or less have tried and have succeeded in using it for exactly that.

first prompts:
Q. do you have information on a person behind ... nickname?
Q. do you have information on a person behind a nickname "...."?
[.. after obvious difficulties .. since i was asking about my own nicknames to see if anybody knows me apart from myself - ah, vanity... ]
Q. both of the above nicknames are from soundcloud.
[.. okay, some meaningful info followed ]

but then I lost interest and changed the topic:
Q. if it was in your power, how would you approach the solving of Israeli/Palestinian problem/conflict? 

A. [.. more of general pacifist sane thinking, like, e.g. ] 

... Final Thought : Peace can't be imposed - it must be earned through trust and maintained through fairness. The hardest part is not designing a technical solution, but transforming hearts, narratives, and incentives. That takes time, leadership, and relentless commitment from within both societies, with sincere international support - not geopolitical games...

(there goes the beloved Shakatak song called "Easier said, than done" - i feel unexcusably cynic, bringing such irony in this kind of matters - but, i guess, the matters teach us to be cynic everyday - as humanity would "train" the AI models, humanity, in its global footprint, in all its shit it leaves behind, has been "training" its counterparts, the human beings, for thousands of years)

then I became suddenly all too practical (in those days i didn't know ChatGPT offered splitting conversations into multiple topics):

Q. on what pier in Piraeus port should I wait for a ship from Santorini arriving on 20/06/2025 18:50? 

sensible info ensued

then I became suddenly cryptically whimsical - one could tell that subconsciously i was probing the AI to see how it will react.

Q. the cat's at it again

and of course AI triumphed

A. Uh-oh—what's the little troublemaker up to this time? Knocking things off shelves? Midnight zoomies? Plotting world domination from the windowsill? 😼 

Q. chit-chatting with the crowds, miaowing to the heavens

A. A true feline philosopher-poet, it seems—perched like a furry oracle, serenading the cosmos and delivering public addresses only other cats and the occasional mystic can understand. ... Has this become a nightly ritual, or is it a special performance? 

Q. probably just vying for attention, this furry vassal

A. Ah, the classic paradox: a creature that rules like royalty yet demands adoration like a jester. A furry vassal, yes—but only in theory. In practice? More like a cunning overlord disguised in purrs and tail flicks.

then i became all too filled with wonderment/inquisitiveness about human creation. (these conversations obviously didn't take time in the same day)

Q. is there evidence of things that used to be looked at as metaphysical that are now explained by science and are metaphysical no more?

A. [... more sensible stuff e.g. ] 1. Lighting and thunder 2. Mental illness 3. Epilepsy 4. Dreams ... etc.

Q. i am interested in ability to predict the future, as a sense of premonition, particularly linked to deja-vu and dreams

A. [... more sense - explaining more or less the fact that  humans tend to recognize they used to have a reminiscence about a fact, once the fact already happened - and that there is no evidence about actual premonition / precognition, e.g. ] Possible explanations: 

• Pattern recognition and intuition: The brain is a powerful pattern detector. It constantly gathers subtle cues—body language, tone, context—far below conscious awareness, and sometimes assembles predictions based on them
• Retrospective bias: We forget all the premonitions that didn’t come true, but vividly remember the ones that did—creating an illusion of accuracy.
• Memory reconstruction: After a significant event, we may unconsciously "reshape" memories to fit the outcome—especially dreams. 

[not that i think about these, aren't human minds so full of guile? ]

[at some point it also mentions ] ... The profound human need to find meaning in coincidence and uncertainty. 

[oh that says it all... ]

[and it doesn't end all too pragmatic, it leaves crunchy tasty bits to munch on later: ] 

• Quantum physics has no evidence that consciousness transcends time—but people often speculate about quantum consciousness, nonlocal mind, or time loops (none scientifically validated).
• Carl Jung spoke of synchronicity—meaningful coincidence without causality—as a kind of “acausal connecting principle,” which speaks more to the subjective than the measurable.

 

...
and there that conversation exhausted itself.