Ask Lemmy

Kids are like that. Most adults don’t care.

.. is there ever any logic to what people think are status symbols?

That is how they market their products.

I see my deGoogled Android device as a higher status symbol than any overpriced stock Apple device.

Only poor people think a phone is a sign of wealth

Tribalism didn't end when civilization started. Anyone not in the tribe is lesser, because the alternative would mean your tribe is lesser.

More specific to an iPhone, if you have one, you can do all the social iPhone things like FaceTime. Don't have one? You can't FaceTime, so there is a social friction or impediment to socializing. Then there is the "othering" of the green bubble and blue bubble thing. You can't share photos or videos the same if you don't have an iPhone. Since we are in a digital age and less physically present, not being able to digitally socialize the same way also inhibits socialization.

All of this is by design. Apple intentionally creates an ecosystem that will excert social pressure on people to buy their products so they can be part of the group like their friends.

I remember a friend of mine whining about how my text bubble was a different color and it "made it weird" to text because of that.

By then I was already super over the whole tribalistic iphone/android bs from people I know when it wasn't being meme'd on, so I just told her "you can either get over it, or we can stop talking and being friends"

Wouldn't you know it, the color of a text bubble isn't enough to end a friendship over.

Cheapest iPhone is $600, cheapest android phone can go as low as $20 (like those walmart prepaid phones locked to a carrier).

When the average person think of android, instead of thinking about a flagship samsung phone, they think of the lowest budget phone.

So in their mind, if you have android, you're automatically categorized as "poor"/"cheap", regardless how much it actually costs.

Wait people really give a shit? Never seen or heard about that

Source: I’m also a college student

Because they paid a lot of money for them and they need to convince themselves that it was worth the cost.

It's expensive

Uh, I don’t. It’s just a phone I use. That’s it.

Teenagers and students are just that; teenagers and students. Very often they care about ‘status symbol’ but also sometimes they don’t care.

I would recommend to stop generalizing.

Some people need to justify their choice to overspend on something...

Cuz they're overpriced? More money = More "exclusive."

Nobody will actually mind if you brag about how you bought a new phone. Also if you are not a rich person you having an expensive phone means you did something smart to "cheat the system."

As an example I had an old coworker when I used to work at a warehouse and he would combo things like service provider sales to buy an iphone.

He did sound smart when explaining the roundabout way he got the phone despite making same money as us. And I don't mind what other people chose to spend money on.

What I do mind is college students thinking macbooks are some "programmers' laptops."

I had to constantly hand-hold group members that think they can get away with not learning how to code and using AI for all the homeworks because they bought a mac and that makes them a good programmer anyway.

"But I thought the program should automatically wait for the threads on this line since it's POSIX."

Yes I love troubleshooting professor's makefile for an OS I don't have because you never learned your own laptop has a symlink from gcc to clang.

It’s not the phone, it’s your age bracket. You can say the same thing for other stuff like shoes/clothes, cars, etc. It’s peer/societal pressure, FOMO, and other factors that teenagers and young adults feel are important. People care less when they get older. My iphone is a utility device to me, and I’ll keep using it until it dies or security updates stop, instead of upgrading every year.

Once something becomes statusy, is seems pretty rare that it ever stops. You can't outcompete Apple at being Apple, and to stay exclusive they can just keep prices up.

It genuinely was revolutionary when it came out. I guess they managed to leverage that into being a luxury brand, when no further world-breaking innovations were forthcoming. The only thing those really have to worry about is staying relevant, as opposed to going the way of fine china and monocles.

They don't. You do.

Why do you think they do? That’s not a thing in reality. That said, I don’t chat about mobile phones with a lot of college students at this point.

Because they're teens

I think originally because they used to be only for AT&T customers and were the most expensive, then android started flooding the market with cheap shitty phones.

I see mine for what it is. A phone. And a serious threat to my privacy. (I'm well into my 50s, if this matters)

Apple tells them to.

As a grown adult, I don’t care what people think about phone brands or multi billion/trillion companies when compared with more of the same. But it’s like sports teams. It doesn’t mean much but it can be fun with friendly rivalries. People who take it seriously though? Not to be taken serious.

I use one because I value privacy. I also have an Android phone from 2019 I like more for a few reasons. I like both. I also like both Xbox and Nintendo. And I don’t hate PlayStation. I don’t use Windows, I use Macs, but at work I’m unofficial IT, people come to the Mac user for help with Windows 10/11 because I know that too, it’s just not what I use at home. I still have like 30 years of experience with Windows. I also have a favorite (gridiron) football team. And I’ll tell you why they suck but I’ll never stop rooting for them. (Don’t have a favorite (association) football club.)

I think tribalism is for people who use things to identify themselves. When you stop doing that, tribalism starts to look dumb.

I don’t. I just use the phone because it works well with my laptop. My previous one was all banged up and scratched, so I wouldn’t really call it a status symbol.

I don’t really care about status though. My friends are a bunch of misfits. If it bothers you that people are using something as a status symbol, perhaps you’re more concerned about status than you realize. I’d love to just advise you to stop caring about that but it’s not that easy. Status seeking is a pretty common, normal behaviour.