Smartphones in decline: the other side of digital obsolescence (I'M Tech)

28 October 2026

[…] Discussions of digital obsolescence generally focus on whether devices can be repaired or when they are replaced. Yet before being replaced, a smartphone often goes through a long period of gradual deterioration: battery life shortens, storage space runs low, the device slows down more often, and certain faults become part of everyday life.

At Télécom Paris, Samuel Huron, a researcher and associate professor of design, has been studying this phenomenon and the way it seems to have become accepted as normal. Working with colleagues from the Limites Numériques, led by the University of Toulouse and the De Vinci Research Center, he investigated how common these faults are. More broadly, the study sheds light on how people use digital technologies and the strategies they develop to cope with faulty devices.

Smartphones designed to work… up to a point

As a specialist in interaction design, Samuel Huron studies how people interact with digital technologies. Although faults are an inherent part of a device’s life cycle, his research has led him to question how devices are designed, given their failure to accommodate the ways people use them.

“We generally design digital devices on the assumption that they work properly. In reality, though, users encounter many problems and develop strategies to keep using their devices for as long as possible,” he explains. […]