Gen Z is ditching smartphones for ‘dumbphones’ with minimal features to curb doomscrolling

The dull and boring phone is the new cool among Gen Zs as they look to escape the ills of doomscrolling. A new, featureless flip phone literally named The Boring Phone caught the attention of young people who want to ditch their phones in favour of a dumbphone.

The phone was launched in April at Milan design week, in a collaboration between Heineken beer and the fashion retailer Bodega.

The Boring Phone is actually a part of new dumbphone boom, where Gen Z is looking to drift away from all the technological advancements that they are born around with.

This sudden change of interest is based on the suspicion of the younger generation that tech products are reducing their attention span, causing stress among the lot.

This suspicion has fuelled reinventions of retro cultural artefacts- a trend known as Newtro. During Newtro, people saw revival (mostly based on nostalgia) of vinyl records, cassettes, 8-bit video games and old-fashioned phones.

It was the absolute nostalgia for the Nokia 3310, the “brick” phone that led to its relaunch in 2017. But the boom really began in the US last year and was, ironically, 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.

But what about the pioneers in smartphones, like Apple and Samsung?

Well, as per Mintel, Apple and Samsung are not under threat as of yet. Nine out of 10 phones are smartphones and dumbphones remain niche, said Joe Birch, a technology analyst at the research firm. 

“However, there is evidence of this generation modifying their smartphone behaviour, with concerns around the negative impacts of being constantly digitally connected driving this,” Birch added. 

“Three in five gen-Zers say they’d like to be less connected to the digital world, for instance.”

You may be surprised to know that this move to digital minimalism among Gen Zs has long been a silent trend. They are the only generation whose time on social media has fallen since 2021, according to GWI, another research company. 

Another reason of going off the internet is concern about privacy, as per the technology analyst Portulans Institute. Gen Zs are more wary of using social media as they are more aware of privacy breach on these platforms by tech giants or governments.

In this sudden change of heart among Gen Zs, the older technologies can create a room for themselves that might lead to their revival. However, going completely offline in today’s world is quite difficult as all essential services like education, healthcare, finance etc. are just a click away.

(With inputs from agencies)