Stressed Gen Z Ditching Smartphones for Flip Phones; Attn, Data Harvesting, Privacy

[appalachiablue]

The ‘boring phone’: stressed-out gen Z ditch smartphones for dumbphones, The Guardian, April 27, 2024. - Ed. The feature-free phone, launched at Milan design week, is the latest device to tap into young people’s concerns about attention-harvesting & data privacy📱
-----
It’s almost enough to make you stop doomscrolling: dull devices are now cool. The Boring Phone is a new, featureless flip phone that is feeding the growing appetites of younger people who want to bin their smartphones in favour of a dumbphone. The latest model is a collaboration between Heineken beer and the fashion retailer Bodega. The Boring Phone is part of a new dumbphone boom, built on the suspicion of gen Z towards the data- and attention-harvesting technologies they have grown up with.

That suspicion has fuelled reinventions of retro cultural artefacts - a 'Newtro' trend seen in the revival of vinyl records, cassettes, fanzines, 8-bit video games and old-fashioned mobile phones. The flip phones boom began in the US last year and was fuelled by TikTokers posting under the #bringbackflipphones hashtag. HMD, which was behind the Nokia relaunch, saw its flip phone sales double by April 2023, while Punkt, which prefers to call them feature phones or minimalist phones, has also seen substantial sales increases.

The Boring Phone is a retro flip phone that proudly boasts of having minimal features. But Apple and Samsung are not under threat yet, according to Mintel.

Nine out of 10 phones are smartphones and dumbphones remain niche, said Joe Birch, a tech analyst. "There is evidence of this generation modifying their smartphone behaviour, with concerns around the negative impacts of being constantly digitally connected.” The move to offlining, or digital minimalism, is also seen in gen Z’s declining use of social media. Twentysomethings are also more concerned about privacy in an internet that can seem more like a surveillance tool for brands, governments and scammers than a place to pursue interests and find interesting people.

The problem with offlining is that the world is increasingly difficult for people without a smartphone. There are 2.4m households in the UK that cannot afford a mobile phone contract and 2m young people who have no access to a learning device, said Hannah Whelan of the Data Poverty Lab. “Most essential services are now online - education, healthcare, universal credit.” People who cannot scan a QR code to fill in a form or order food are at least at a disadvantage, and some systems require them...
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/27/the-boring-phone-stressed-out-gen-z-ditch-smartphones-for-dumbphones

[elleng]

1. This not young one STILL has old, small, boring FLIP-Phone!

[appalachiablue]

3. Same, I've haven't needed a smartphone yet so this

trend is welcome. Data mining and tracking have increased rapidly.

[hlthe2b]

2. The generation who has intentionally published every detail of their lives on social media? The irony...

I'm pretty damned neurotic about internet security I don't mind admitting, but then again I have eschewed as much social media and identifiable tracebacks as is possible without turning hermet in the remaining wilderness.

[appalachiablue]

4. Good points, I"m holding off on a smartph as long as possible..

esp not being tech savvy. Kudos to young people for trying to be more aware of online negatives even though late in the game as you say. Never having used social media much I don't miss it - one plus of being older!

[Baitball Blogger]

5. Gen Z: Much wiser than some of their parents.

You can access anything through a laptop, that you can with a mobile phone. So, why carry around a GPS device.

[appalachiablue]

7. Amen, a laptop works for me just fine..

[usonian]

6. My iphone8 is starting to fail badly, and after only 8 years of operation, it's time for a new one.

I plan to install only a few apps (and I am an app collector ... ) because I only use a few on the phone. It's too small for most stuff (as I type this on a 27 inch display).

I ran a check for malware and thank goodness it wasn't there. Best to keep things simple.

The plain fact is that phones (and tablets) are impossible to debug and really manage, and that's by design.

With a desktop system, I can "make things right." I can even make my own apps!!!

I don't see the point of great complexity in a unit that can't effectively be managed.

I'm a techie and simplicity doesn't come naturally or easily to me.

I just aim for it when it really helps make life better.

And as for young people being put off by the increasing flood of garbage on their main means of communication, and the demolition of privacy, I agree, and as I have written here and elsewhere, it is time to reinvent this enshittified internet in a people-centric and people-friendly way.

Stay tuned.

[appalachiablue]

10. Good post, esp these topics, tx. Basic is better for me, no smartph. yet.

.. The plain fact is that phones (and tablets) are impossible to debug and really manage, and that's by design.

With a desktop system, I can "make things right." I can even make my own apps!!!

I don't see the point of great complexity in a unit that can't effectively be managed.

I'm a techie and simplicity doesn't come naturally or easily to me.

I just aim for it when it really helps make life better.

And as for young people being put off by the increasing flood of garbage on their main means of communication, and the demolition of privacy, I agree, and as I have written here and elsewhere, it is time to reinvent this enshittified internet in a people-centric and people-friendly way.

[usonian]

11. Thanks for the thoughtful reply to what was a bit of a rant on my part.

You can get your complexity, plenty of it, easily.

I went through the apps I intend to keep on a new phone this morning, and it's 15 or so, down from the 100 or more that found their way there. That doesn't include any banking apps, which are the most dangerous if the phone is lost or stolen, but I'll keep the wallet app. Apple is very attentive to security with that, and made a big fix to help prevent "shoulder surfers" from stealing your phone and locking you out of all your accounts. But not until several people were taken to the cleaners that way. But paying contactless is still safer than swiping a credit card, because your credit card number never is seen by vendors when you use contactless.

I'm actually looking forward to a phone with two screens of apps; the built-in ones plus a handful of my own.

I've got plenty of complexity on the desktop computer, which right now has 3 external disk drives connected, and an SD card adapter to load photos from any of the digital cameras. Scanner at the ready.

When you compare phones, a great deal of the difference between low end models and flagship models is in the camera.

Well, by golly, I have lots of fine cameras that go from extreme wide-angle to basically a small telescope. Yes, I take quick photos, basically of fun items on the go, with the phone camera, but I always carry an 8X optical zoom camera (smaller than a phone) and on longer trips, the 42X zoom camera, which is old now. Another example of complexity where I want it, and make good use of it. On a recent trip, I got a great photo of a heron, a creature not known for letting you get your phone camera within a few feet of it!

As for making the internet more human, think of the DU community. If you posted anything like we do here on one of the war-zone websites, you'd be attacked and threatened all day and night long.

[shrike3]

8. I'm glad to hear this.

I finally got a smart phone, and have found it useful in certain situations. But I mostly ignore it. I am unique in my friend group. We'll be out, listening to music, and they're all on their phones. They live on them. Good to hear some young people are breaking the spell.

[DavidDvorkin]

9. I'm 80 and love my smartphone

Kids today. I tell ya.