Who wastes £52 billion a year on gadgets they don't use?

Davey Winder
Saturday, 06 March 2010 02:19

Your IT - Home IT

A new study suggests that your average Brit spends just over £3,000 each, every year, on gadgets. But that's not the half of it...


The most surprising statistic is yet to come in the shape of some £52 billion being wasted as half the features of those gadgets are never actually used courtesy of the ignorance or laziness of the user.

Apparently the £52 billion number was calculated by looking at the average 'features never used' percentage and applying some whizzy maths relating to effective value when looking at the total per UK household spend on electronics. Whatever.

According to the poll of some 3000 consumers, which was conducted by gadget magazine Stuff in conjunction with Sky, in excess of 50 percent of the gadget functions remain unused as the buyers never quite get the hang of how to use them properly.

The survey reveals that good old fashioned ignorance is to blame. For example, nearly half of those asked had no idea that you needed a set-top box capable of receiving a High Definition broadcast in order to watch HD content on a HD television, instead assuming that the HD TV alone was enough.

Whether this lack of basic technical understanding is the fault of the consumer or a failure of product marketing departments is open to debate.

I am inclined to think that it's a little of both, although reading that 10 percent of those asked admitted that they had tried to fix a broken gadget by banging it on the side does rather make me want to think again to be honest.