As of 2021, 78.4% of households own a laptop or desktop, compared to 85.6% with a smartphone. [1] And it's likely driven more by economics than lifestyle choices. It's 50.9% for households earning less than $25k, and 96.1% for households earning > $150k.
The reason PC purchases plummeted is not because people stopped using them, but because if you don't use your PC for high end gaming (or a tiny handful of other esoteric tasks) then one from a decade, or even more, ago will function 100% as well as a brand new one.
[1] - https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
> people stopped using them,
I had many co-workers not owning a laptop outside of their work provided one.
There is a mix of a workplace permissive enough of light use (browser/mail) for personal purposes, and most services having an app that can be better than their web site (banks in particular).
Of course most people will have a laptop and just not use it for years, but there's definitely people just not buying one in the first place.
Ownership isn't active usage though - My parents have their laptops (and probably 4+, since they do have retired ones stashed), but just don't use it, especially now that they retired.
Exactly. I know people who own both phone and laptop, but the phone is used daily while the laptop is used a couple times a year. Mostly for writing letters, using some tax software, etc
I don't know if the economic argument helps here, since you can buy 2-5 laptops for the price of a folding phone.