Are smartphones environmentally friendly?

Smartphones are able to tackle a wide variety of tasks that would otherwise be divided into many separate devices, each having its own carbon footprint. As a consequence, smarthphones have largely replaced or reduced the consumption of:

• Communication devices (land line telephones, beepers, walkie-talkies. etc)
• Cameras
• Video recorders
• Laptop and desktop computers
• Radios
• Portable audio players (Walkmans, Discmans, iPods, mp3 players, boomboxes, etc)
• Landline phones and pagers
• Flashlights
• GPS receivers
• Clocks (wristwatches, alarm clocks, stopwatches, etc)
• Calculators (including scientific calculators and graphing calculators)
• Gaming devices (Game Boys, etc)
• Voice recorders
• Paper (agendas, calendars, maps, letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, dictionaries, notebooks, documents, address books, tickets, handbooks, etc)
• Mirrors
• Metronomes and tuners
• DVD players
• Flash drives
• Remote controls
• eBook readers
• Police scanners
• Cards (credit cards, IDs)
• Banking devices (ATM)
• Keys (for cars)
• Gambling devices (slot machines, etc)
• Levels
• Light meters
• Decibel meter
• Data acquisition devices
• Spectral light meters
• Compass
• Tape measure and rulers
• Pedometers
• Speedometers

Note that the consumption of some of these devices may have actually increased since the arrival of smartphones, but surely their consumption would be much higher without smartphones.

• Nörmann, N., & Maier-Speredelozzi, V. (2016). Cost and Environmental Impacts in Manufacturing: A Case Study Approach. Procedia Manufacturing, 5, 58–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2016.08.008
• CE Delft. (2021, December 3). Carbon footprint of unwanted data-use by smartphones. Branch. https://branch.climateaction.tech/issues/issue-3/carbon-footprint-of-unwanted-data-use-by-smartphones/
• Wikipedia:Jevons paradox
• Radiation detection - Check out comments about how to calibrate any phone to do it