Becoming comfortable with inconvenience to reclaim one’s attention, time and life. 

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What you just read is the sequence I punch into my dumbphone keypad if I want to write “New phone, who dis?”

It started with TikTok users bedazzling cheap flip phones with gems, paint and charms in the name of 2000s nostalgia and “dopamine detoxes”. Fine arts students on campus began pulling little plastic bricks out of their pockets and poking at them, like a child at a toy cash register. HMD—licensees to the Nokia brand, and now Mattel—released the Barbie (flip) Phone last year. The odd disembodied arm emerges from deep within mosh pits across Melbourne, flailing that unmistakable tiny screen and backlit keyboard. News channels from New York to New Zealand deem teenagers disposing of their iPhones for $50 replacements a worthy story, and it feels plausible to say that dumbphones are back, baby. 

Gen Z Know We Have a Problem

In 1992, one year before the World Wide Web became freely accessible to the public, dot-com millionaire Josh Harris ironically hypothesised that “At first, everybody’s going to like [the internet], but there will be a fundamental change in the human condition.” And he was right. Gen Z was the first generation to encounter smartphones as a necessity from birth. With many of us growing up to accept this dominant lifestyle as truth, it’s easy to break the ice with other touch-typing tech gurus of similar age over a collective nostalgia: Club Penguin, early YouTube and churning out Video Star edits faster than Pop Mart acquires property in Melbourne. But it’s not without the inevitable counterbalance of a collective trauma too: blue waffles screencaps on Instagram, a Reddit 50/50 beheading sent by a school friend, porn popups on dodgy streaming sites or a “1 lunatic, 1 ice pick” upload–which still makes me nauseous when cutting meat with a knife and fork. But the far more sinister facet to the internet, which increasingly troubles young people beyond the effortless accessibility of shock content, is the widespread inability to mitigate overuse–which is largely owed to modern design. A design that deliberately renders users complicit in their own mental fatigue and anguish, for profit.

A “dumbphone” is a mobile device that offers basic communication with little internet access; also known as a brick, flip or feature phone. 

My biggest problem with carrying a smartphone at all times was this feeling that my head was too cluttered. Too full with the tonnes of useless media from platforms turning my hormones into projected metrics (dopamine targets aren’t a made up concept within the Black Mirror vacuum—Meta has been sued by 33 states in the USA), I was never focused with the potential of apps I could use in my pocket whenever I wanted. I always felt on edge knowing a notification could drop in at any second, from any platform, any person. A study has shown that merely having your phone in sight decreases brain activity. I could hardly remember anything, ever.

My second main problem was the convenience of the smartphone. It is so easy to become complacent–you don’t even realise it’s happening, because the motions are so smooth and effortless. All you need is one hand with a thumb with endless scrolling capacity. Immediately upon waking, I would scroll. When I came home, I would scroll. Before bed, I would scroll–doing something as useless as perusing my camera roll for the 100th time, without knowing why and then feeling momentarily empty if I had few notifications in the morning. Technology creates self-obsession. I felt like I could never do the things I wanted to do because there weren’t enough hours in the day; when really, my hours were misspent on things that benefitted no one long term. Like throwing hundred-dollar bills off a yacht and into the wind.

Thirdly, I wanted to authentically re-engage with the people and world around me. Compared to 2003, young Americans in 2024 were throwing 70 per cent fewer parties. Instead of texting people a funny anecdote and calling it a day, I wanted to consciously spend more time in physical spaces and with physical media; i.e. galleries, cinemas, record stores, parks, brick-and-mortar establishments–places that are becoming displaced by online shopping. If the physical world disappears, so do the communities and social relations we need for psychological wellbeing.

Social media and technology overuse is so detrimental to public health that, worldwide, measures are being implemented on individual and government levels. On a microscale, phrases like “digital detox” and “dopamine diet” are commonplace amongst internet users who assess their own tech habits as problematic to the point where they deny themselves access to social media and/or a smartphone. Flip phone sales doubled in Europe and Australia in 2023. HMD recognised this trend and tapped into the conscious consumer market last year with the Barbie Phone–a pink flip with only the basic features for call, text radio, notes and “Malibu Snake”, of course; with the addition of some extra mindful “Barbie meditation” and “Digital balance tips”. It coaxed prospective buyers with its classic California summer iconography and nostalgia-drenched taglines, promoting “less browsing and more fun” with “the joy of simpler, sweeter days.” On a macroscale, top health authorities in the U.S. are advocating for warning labels on social media platforms, like those on tobacco and alcohol products. After 2025, the minimum age for social media users in Australia will be 16. Even a mayor of a town in France attempted to ban smartphone use in all public places–backed by a 54 per cent vote looking towards stronger communities, better recreational facilities and, funnily enough, social connectedness. This awareness of technology’s risks is not new, but young people seem to be increasingly aware of their agency over relationships with technology. And where discipline fails to be exerted over one’s addictive tendencies, or disillusionment with convenience culture is turning one depressed, flip phones are a growing instrument for salvation.

The young people who are choosing dumbphones

I spoke to several of my peers, from dumbphone purists to smartphone addicts, to get an idea of how diverse this spectrum of tech dependency is. Some feel they can use technology a healthy amount and that it enhances their social/emotional wellbeing. Some find their compulsive technology use distressing and don’t know what to do about it yet. Many opt to only access certain apps and social media through their smartphone’s browser, which minimises distraction while retaining all of a smartphone’s useful features. Some don’t engage with social media much at all but appreciate other smartphone features. Most say they cannot live without Google Maps, and this is a dealbreaker for them. One person enforces a “do not disturb” limit, which is password protected by a friend so they cannot disable it themselves. And the few, whose numbers are increasing, switched to dumbphones in rejection of how interwoven technology is today with daily functioning. A friend said she would get a flip phone simply “as an act of resistance, to show others that it’s possible to look up in a train carriage where [everyone’s in their own echo chamber].”

I became fascinated with dumbphones after hearing about a friend of a friend, who made the flip earlier this year, and who I now found uber charismatic for making such a controversial, self-assured decision to reject modernity (no, this is not a cheap persuasive technique and I can’t promise more people will ask you out if you get a flip phone, but it’s been working alright for me). We shared identical attitudes about smartphones being mutually exclusive to presence: he said, “Information on the web is always linked to more information that is so effortless to switch between, because you know you could be looking at something better, newer, more interesting or valuable and it’s not far. Everything feels inadequate in a way that doesn’t happen when you read a book or put in a CD … those don’t offer you this unimaginably huge access to information, so you focus deeply on what’s right in front of you. Using social media feels like being a dumpster at a recycling facility where you only accept a certain shape of rubbish, and you don’t consider any of the other ideas running over you until the one you were waiting for sifts through. Compulsive use of technology comes from fear and escapism.”

A couple of my friends who switched to dumbphones did so by accident, in losing their smartphone and quickly replacing it with a cheaper alternative, like the Nokia 235; they ended up using them for much longer than they intended. I recall not hearing from my friend for a little while and then meeting up with him to the sentiment of “I’ve had no phone for the last week, and it’s been the best week of my life.” However, the majority of dumbphone users I spoke to said it was to curb the too-much-time they spend on social media.

But years before these conversations, the dumbphone movement is reported to have originated in New York, 2022, with the Luddite Club. A group of high school students, the Luddite Club rejected social media and smartphones in favour of quality time–simply talking, reading, exploring, creating for themselves and the community, engaging with physical media, presently. In an interview with CBS NY, group member Ava De La Cruz explained, “Now I’m suddenly in high school and I’m about to be in college, and my life basically … escaped me, completely.” That was the sentiment that committed me to luddite-dom after much pondering of my own day-to-day malaise. It is quite depressing to reflect on a childhood spent predominantly in a fake realm, which is proliferating with more fantasy offshoots which do not help vulnerable parties avoiding real life (see: “Come Shopping with Me + My Besties | A Day in the Life” and other such videos.) Two thirds of young people in Australia report feeling lonely or isolated from others, despite being more connected than ever. In this century people are watching hyperreal depictions of others having fun with friends instead of having fun with their own friends. ChatGPT is being probed for therapeutic advice in place of real qualified psychologists, with dangerous consequences. Opting for dating apps as an avenue for meeting new people means that third spaces like night clubs, bars and community centres are progressively shutting down.

I came to understand that this indecipherable ever-lurking ennui, which I had felt for a very long time, was a symptom of lack of purpose and effort. When almost every action in our lives is coordinated around technology and its immediacy, with human skills that take years of learning and practice to perfect being appropriated by AI, the world without the internet, in comparison, can seem flat and impotent. Franco Berardi conceptualises technology’s deadening quality as a “colonization of the temporal dimension”, referring to the dimension “of mind … perception … life”: the new medium for societal advancement now that physical and interplanetary space has been conquered by humans. This phenomenon of having the entire world at your fingertips, and still feeling empty, is interpreted by Byung-Chul Han as a product of “excess positivity”. That is, the drive and freedom to unlimited creation and consumption, plateauing into overstimulation, then exhaustion, becoming passivity (more colloquially known as “brain rot”, however this term didn’t exist in 2010). If no time is made for “profound idleness” (a.k.a. boredom, or downtime) of contemplation and gratitude, new ideas cannot emerge or be digested, and mental health effectively plummets from the weight of endless passing stimuli.

To be present these days can feel like a form of resistance and countercultural optimism. The most popular responses to my flip phone typically fall into categories of: reflexive shock: “What the fuck is that!?”, straight up offence: “For fuck’s sake how am I gonna send you reels now? You’re never online anymore”, or the more optimistic, repressed desire: “Wow, I would love to get a flip phone but just don’t know if I could”. It’s painfully true that not everybody can get by with just a dumbphone in a hyperconnected society—limited features may compromise one’s professional, social or personal life when we rely on so many apps and platforms to keep the world turning. But it was exactly this demand, to be reachable at every single second of the day, that was driving me crazy and afflicting me with phantom buzzes.

A Forever Love!? Or a Trendy Fad?

I would say that in the few months that I’ve been shutting my phone with an audible SNAP, all my aforementioned goals have been realised in my life but not without swapping back and forth between my phones a couple times—I felt the positive differences immediately, and then the drawbacks a while later, like most.

I use the Opel Touchflip because it has WhatsApp, which my workplace uses, and allows for proper inbox/outbox group chats on a single screen–a feature many dumbphones typically don’t have. You will find in your journey that most dumbphones are thwarted by one fateful hamartia for which you will have to compromise. I have WhatsApp and crystal clear audio/reception quality, but very very short battery life. My first $50 Ruio brick phone had immortal battery life and a super charming shape, but very bad reception–leaving  my calls with more “Huh!? You’ve dropped out, I can’t hear you”, than actual conversation. My friend’s brick phone is the cheapest functioning one on the market, but has no mute function, which they had to remedy themselves via a permanent DIY headphone jack plug. Getting a new dumbphone can challenge your creativity and puts you in some amusing situations; like when I sat with my current phone—made for seniors—in my back pocket for the first time, accidentally triggering the panic button which blared an alarm, ‘EMERGENCY, NOW DIALLING TRIPLE 0’. I then read the manual to discern how to disable the panic button’s function.

Regardless of the hiccups, the experience has overall made my headspace exponentially clearer and more relaxed. The most valuable skill the dumbphone life has given me is the power to be idle—to just sit and think. Alain de Botton writes that, “Journeys are the midwives of thought,” and I find truth in that commutes without tech are surprisingly the most fruitful part of my day. It’s something about being a passenger in a moving vessel that your mind excitedly mimics. Making time for thought as its own activity too, rather than a complement to routine, has aided my creativity, introspection, gratitude and sleep. With much of my thinking done during the day, bedtime is no longer burdened by whirling thoughts as the only time I was previously unoccupied. Everyone is time poor to an extent, but less so when you use your time intentionally.

Once I omitted social media from my life, I completely forgot that it existed. Beyond the initial withdrawals and social alienation, I felt almost no desire to interact with it again–in the same way that the clunky operation of my dumbphone and its lack of customisation make me pretty indifferent to using it. Most flips will come with a surprising amount of features, such as an alarm, voice recorder, FM radio, notes, even Facebook, (very slow) YouTube and a web browser–but I deleted the latter four of these. The jingle when my phone switches on, the limited choice between two tacky coloured circle backgrounds and the fried ringtones still charm me, but don’t compel me to check my phone throughout the day. Big limitations make the existing features so much sweeter.

I take greater time doing everything I do now, as opposed to rapidly ticking my day off a to-do list. I find myself with spare hours I can now utilise for reading, writing, seeing friends and any other activity I previously “couldn’t fit in”, which is what I tell people when they ask, “So, like, what do you do in the morning if you don’t use your phone?”

I’ve realised that I know how to get most places without Google Maps if I just remember hard enough, by planning ahead or reading signs–which is infinitely more satisfying to the senses than acutely following a map. Asking strangers questions or for directions, instead of a computer, opens up beautiful possibilities. 

That said, it can also be isolating given the reality of how integral smartphones are to the vast majority of people’s lives. I never understand the references to memes my friends make anymore, which can feel defeating. I’m distanced from the Instagram group chats my various communities share and connect in. I have gotten lost on a few occasions after making a wrong turn in suburbia and have had to call friends for directions, or asked them to come get me on their bikes, in the rain, in the dark. I have often missed important emails or deadlines because I forget to check my inbox and social media DMs for a few days to weeks, but I’m responsible for my own laziness. I still have access to all these platforms “for web”.

The healthiest way for me to have a relationship with the internet is for it to be a separate entity to, rather than an extension of, myself. Something like a home PC setup in the 90s, which designates a specific time, intention and place for use. This can’t work for everybody’s lifestyle, and definitely doesn’t work perfectly for mine, but it’s what feels best for me. Technology won’t feel “right” unless greed and consumer exploitation at a corporate level are radically replaced with empathy. The Light Phone is a hopeful example of human-centric design, created to rebut these monopolies by “serv[ing] you, not the other way around”. 

Existing regulatory features like “Screen Time” don’t work well enough. The hyper-addictive nature of social media platforms like autoplay or public metrics could be removed so that people don’t need to regulate their use quite as much. Greater restrictions on data mining could be imposed to protect people from emotional and financial manipulation. Parents and children could receive better education on the internet’s risks to manage personal use early on, so that we don’t have to ban apps altogether. Workplaces could be more organised and respectful of employees’ personal leisure time, so they don’t have to stay alert outside of work hours. Greater emphasis could be placed on the creation and nurturing of community spaces that provide security.

If the dumbphone lifestyle continues to gain traction, hopefully manufacturers will upgrade certain features to make dumbphones more accessible, like having more sophisticated group chat capability, higher quality cameras, greater processing power and better mic/connectivity standards.

There’s No Easy Answer

Of course, social media and technology aren’t evil when used in moderation. There are many features that can enhance one’s quality of life.

Keeping up a social life is, granted, so much swifter with a smartphone. You can achieve more by doing less; know what people are up to without caring enough to ask. Having a dumbphone can be hard work in the social domain, and leave one feeling more isolated unless they pursue with intention.

The internet also offers an efficient platform for the circulation of educational resources and entertainment. It gives exposure to artists and creators, opens up avenues to new ideas and dimensions of experience. Some features could even be critical to one’s safety and survival, like knowing the fastest way to get home via Maps if you are stranded.

While many of these can be achieved without a smartphone mediating connection, as per the rest of history, it’s just … faster. I’ve used my flip phone unwaveringly for around four months now, only recently rebooting my smartphone to keep up with my new workplace’s app requirements whilst I’m new, and to socialise more easily with various groups. I can do so in a much more mindful way now without being seduced by the smartphone’s design; my lockscreen is plain black, and I have all notifications except for SMS disabled. It works advantageously for me at the moment, but like last time, my presence slips away more often. 

Nowadays, the internet can often seem like it’s engineered against the audience it once tried to serve. When platforms endeavour to exploit users’ weaknesses for capital so ferociously that Facebook will target you with beauty ads after you delete a selfie from your profile, the costs can seem to outweigh the benefits. As such, the need for a more humane, benevolent and authentically connected way of life is illuminated to many. Whether the current flip phone trend is just a fad of nostalgia fetishism or a temporary detox strategy, the pendulum is slowly swinging back towards compassionate analogue means of consumption and life, where many struggle to trust technology anymore. Xiu Xiu are one of the most recent artists to pull their phenomenal discography from Spotify—or “Garbage Hole Violent Armageddon Portal” as they prefer to call it—over its CEO’s investment in AI war drones. At risk of sounding idealistic, maybe a collective effort to revive non-centralised community noticeboards, newsletters, rip-off tab posters, third spaces, physical media and basic word of mouth, could be the lifeline to this era’s missing sense of purpose. If technology can no longer be trusted to nurture humanity’s best interest, maybe your local community will, instead. And it all starts with a will to be present—maybe even, with a dumbphone.