Cost or Standard of Living?

Café Hayek has had a great exchange with readers on the distinction between cost of living and standard of living. An excerpt:

Which brings us back to Cyberike's complaint about life today compared to the 1970's:

I had no cable bill, no internet bill, no cell phone's. Those items right there add about $200 to my monthly expenses. I see no one taking these types of items into account, yet they are certainly factors in the cost of living. Have they added to my quality of life? Yes. Do we consider them necessities? Also yes.

These are not the cost of living, as economists define it. But they are the cost of living in the everyday sense of the phrase. "I can't live without my cell phone." Or e-mail. Or my laptop or my GPS system. "I have to have my digital camera for my trip." Can you imagine having to wait for your film to be developed? Who would put up with that? Well, we could obviously, but few of us choose to. Or can you imagine putting three kids in one bedroom? Impossible. Actually, it's not. Some people do it today. Americans did it all the time 100 years ago. But the average American family today doesn't do it. Not because we have to give each kid his or her own bedroom. Because we're wealthy enough to choose to do so.