POWERFUL ADDICTION
Phones can trump love, money
A surprising number of British Columbians would forgo a day with their spouses or a day of pay rather than give up their smartphones for a corresponding period, according to a survey commissioned by B.C. Hydro.
“Willing to give up pay for a day seems a bit extreme to me, but it’s kind of interesting,” said B.C. Hydro spokeswoman Tanya Fish, adding power data shows customers’ devotion to devices is changing how they use electricity.
The survey of 400 adults in B.C. found a quarter of them aged 25-54 would give up spending time with a spouse or partner for a day before going without their phones for 24 hours, a number that jumped to one third for those aged 55-64. Seventy per cent of 18- to 24-yearolds reported sleeping with phones in their beds, at least occasionally. And more than a quarter of the same group would rather give up a day’s pay than be without their phone for 24 hours.
Almost one-third of those 18-24 would forgo turning up the heat on a cold winter day before turning off their phones for the same period.
Overall, B.C. Hydro’s survey found three-quarters of British Columbians own smartphones, which they use, on average, 4.6 hours a day.
“There has been discussion about our increasing reliance on smartphones (with) topics of discussion from safety while driving to kids using them in classrooms,” Fish said.
However, aside from debates on excessive use and screen addiction, “we wanted to look at it from the household electricity use standpoint,” she added.
Charging a single phone doesn’t consume a lot of electricity, but the accumulation of phones, tablets, laptops and wireless internet routers or set-top boxes for high-definition TV have caused “a dramatic shift” in household power use.
So while the increasing energy efficiency of household appliances has decreased their proportion of a home’s electricity bill to about 20 per cent in 2015 from 40 per cent in the early 1990s, the share accounted for by personal electronics shot up to 17 per cent from seven per cent over the same period.
Provincewide, Fish said the amount of electricity B.C. Hydro customers use for personal electronics would be enough to power 289,000 typical homes.
Fish said the survey, which B.C. Hydro was releasing under the title Constantly Connected: B.C.’s obsession with personal electronics and how it’s shifting household electricity use, helps fill in the utility’s understanding of power use that it gets from the residential end-use survey.
For instance, this year’s survey showed 70 per cent of respondents reported having used multiple devices at once, such as checking social media on a smartphone while watching television.
The results also tracked respondents’ interest in smart-home devices, such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home, and their accessories, which opens possibilities for Hydro to prod them to use their efficiency features.
According to the survey, 50 per cent of respondents said they were interested in buying a smart-home product within the next year.
And among those who have already purchased them, 56 per cent said they were interested in adding smart light switches to their systems.
With more knowledge about what customers are doing with smart switches, smart plugs and smart thermostats, Fish said the utility was working on being the expert “to make sure they ’re using them to aid efficiency and not just drawing additional power.”
Fish said B.C. Hydro would conduct its residential end-use survey again next year to continue tracking trends, such as the tendency of millennials to not own televisions at all.