Vote now: What happens to your old phone when you upgrade?

Today we’re taking a trip to the metaphorical phone graveyard. I know, sounds a bit dark, doesn’t it? But the reality is that phones are quite feeble creatures, they’re just like day-flies.

Well, maybe not exactly - the average lifespan of a smartphone is around 2.5 years in the US, according to Statista. And while 2.5 year is not a day-fly lifespan, the rate at which smartphone manufacturers dish out new models far outweighs the actual needs for the said new models.



Thus we can only expect the lifecycle of a regular smartphone to shrink further in the future. So, the question is, what happens to your old phone when you upgrade?

With so many trade-in programs (and good ones, too) it’s likely that most of you guys just trade your old phone to get a newer model. I’m quite sentimental myself and tend to keep my old phones to give them to relatives and friends.

I even sold one or two on a version of Craigslist here in my country but this was more of an exception to the rule. I’d like to think that a gadget can serve somebody else rather than being sent to a huge phone graveyard, or a recycling plant, years before its time.