Gen Z is looking to escape the woes of doomscrolling, and the bland phone, termed dumbphones, is the new cool. Young people who would instead give up their phones for a dumbphone have taken notice of a new, featureless flip phone that goes by the label “The Boring Phone.” Having grown up with constant connectivity, Gen Z feels the pressure to disconnect for several reasons. Firstly, screen time addiction is a significant concern, with many individuals spending hours mindlessly scrolling on social media platforms, a phenomenon commonly referred to as “doomscrolling.” Excessive screen time can cause sleep disturbances, a loss of productivity, and a detachment from reality.
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Social media platforms’ constant pressure to compare and measure up can be harmful to one’s mental health, contributing to feelings of anxiety, inadequacy, and depression. Lastly, there is a growing concern among Gen Z about data collection and privacy breaches on smartphones. People are growing increasingly wary of their internet activity and the potential consequences for their security and privacy as they become more aware of the risk of disclosing personal information online.
In April, Heineken beer and fashion boutique Bodega collaborated to unveil the phone during Milan Design Week
Boring Phone is a product of the new dumbphone boom
The Boring Phone is a product of the new dumbphone boom, a reaction to the technological improvements that Generation Z was exposed to at birth. Feature phones, sometimes called dumbphones, are becoming increasingly popular as a way for people to overcome their addiction to smartphones and their privacy concerns. These devices are more feature-limited than smartphones, usually only enabling texting, calling, and maybe basic gaming. Feature phones, which forgo the sophisticated features of smartphones, offer a simple user interface that promotes thoughtful use and lessens the urge to check social media feeds and notifications continuously. Furthermore, feature phones are thought to gather less data than smartphones, which makes them appealing to people who value privacy and are suspicious of the widespread data-gathering methods connected to smartphone use.
The younger generation’s fear that internet items are shortening their attention span and stressing them out is the basis for this abrupt shift in interest.
This mistrust has sparked the “Newtro” trend, which is reimagining vintage cultural items. People noticed a resurgence of 8-bit video games, vinyl records, cassettes, and vintage phones during NewtoNIA, mainly due to nostalgia.
Gen Z demands that dumbphones replace smartphones
The reason behind the revival of the Nokia 3310 in 2017 was the overwhelming nostalgia for the “brick” phone. However, the US saw a significant spike last year, paradoxically sparked by TikTokers sharing content with the hashtag #bringbackflipphones.
By April 2023, sales of flip phones, which HMD, the company that brought back the Nokia brand, had doubled, and sales of feature phones, or minimalist phones, as Punkt calls them, had also increased significantly.
Gen Z’s rising attraction to dumbphones may spur a change in the tech sector’s strategy, encouraging businesses to prioritise digital wellbeing and foster a more harmonious relationship with technology. Tech companies may make investments in creating features and tools that enable consumers to better manage their digital consumption in response to worries about screen addiction and its effects on mental health. Promoting better usage patterns might involve adding features to their products like screen time tracking, app usage limitations, and mindfulness prompts. A greater emphasis on finding a balance between the advantages of technology and the requirement for user control may also result from businesses looking into ways to give customers the connectivity and functionality they want without compromising their privacy or sense of autonomy.
Tech businesses can better adjust to changing consumer tastes and cultivate a more sustainable and conscientious digital ecosystem by tackling these issues and prioritising user wellbeing.
