I Want a Smartphone, but I Need a Yacht

I want a smartphone… but I don’t. It’s more like I feel like I need one to continue living in this world. It’s already a communication device; a computer; storage for music, movies, photos, and podcasts; a checkbook; a credit card machine; a locator for self, others, restaurants and constellations – but luckily there are still other ways to perform these functions, so for the moment a smartphone is just a want. Eventually, though, it will be the only way to check out a library book (book!) or to travel; it will be our social security card; passport; driver’s license; certificate of birth, marriage, divorce, and/or death. Then, of course, it will be a need.

Wants vs. needs is at the heart of the question of what is enough. I never took a psychology class (though growing up with two psychologists should entitle me to at least a bachelor’s degree in the field!), but I do know about Maslow’s hierarchy. At the bottom are the physiological needs – food, water, air, excretion, etc., which, when unfulfilled, supposedly make it impossible to do anything more in life than just try to survive. A smartphone isn’t necessary for any of those, but the right app could help locate a food or water source or a public bathroom. Still, when the future comes, and it is impossible to buy anything without a smartphone, I will still easily (well, maybe with some difficulty) be able to stay right on our land and live off our garden in the summer and off deer and pine needles in the winter without any electronic devices. And I will be able to use my own bathroom facilities, or the woods, as needed.

The second level of needs Maslow lists is safety. Here a smartphone could be an asset or a liability. It is good to be able to call for help when in trouble (to actually place a call, unlike the two girls trapped in an Australian sewer who simply updated their Facebook status), but I can use my dumbphone for that just as easily. On the other hand, my dumbphone doesn’t have GPS, so it should not lead the NSA to me, which may, in the end, keep me safer. Not that I have anything to hide, of course, but given the amount of “collateral damage” our military operations always generate, I’d rather err on the side of caution.

So score one point for the smartphone on physiological needs and zero on safety. The higher levels of need Maslow describes are social connection, esteem, and self-actualization. We need to feel useful, to feel like we belong, to be valued by ourselves and others, and to feel like we are working to our potential. The traditional way to feel like we belong is to be part of a tribe. We wear tattoos, dress a certain way, or root for a certain team in order to show our affiliation. (My husband’s San Francisco Giants hat is an icon of his tribe. Often someone will recognize the sign and speak to him as one of the group. Here in the East, his tribe is not large, but apparently it is sufficient.)

This tribal iconography must be why my community college students, many of whom fail classes because they “can’t afford” the textbook, almost all have smartphones. I’m not sure how they prioritize a $200 phone and $100/month service over their degree, but I guess it’s that important to be part of their peer group, the student tribe. And speaking of peer groups, in an article I’ve previously mentioned from the Atlantic, the multimillionaires interviewed almost all felt like they needed more money to have enough. Why? Because absolute wealth doesn’t matter, only relative wealth within one’s group. If you don’t have as nice a yacht as the guy next door, then you clearly need to trade up. Otherwise you’ll lose your spot in the good yacht tribe. And then where will you be?

Personally, I tend to think of needs as only those things at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy: food, water, air, shelter, love (maybe). There are people in refugee camps living in tents. There are homeless in cardboard boxes on sidewalks, poor kids in tin hovels between buildings in Brazil. They live. They make it from day to day somehow. They definitely do not have what most Americans would consider to be enough to meet their needs, but do they? Researchers have found that in many people the needs for belonging, esteem and self-actualization are prime motivators even when physiological and safety needs are not completely met. Sometimes it’s more important to belong than to eat.

So is more than enough to simply ensure physical survival a want or a need? If it is a want, then my desire for a smartphone is as exorbitantly ridiculous as the rich guy’s desire for a better yacht. But if cultural affiliation and belonging are truly needs, that sometimes even trump the basics, then the smartphone is becoming more and more necessary as more and more people get them and my tribe of holdouts grows ever smaller.