As a Gen Z wanting to get off social media, I lived for a week using a ‘dumb phone’

Any card-carrying member of my digital generation can tell you that social media is among the leading sources of our woes, with experts acknowledging as much by labelling Generation Z the most “depressed, anxious, and fragile” on record.

However, as a 19-year-old, I’m sceptical about whether a social media ban could work – my generation has a knack for getting around externally imposed restrictions on technology (we know how to use VPNs, for example) – so it’s worth noting that there might be a more effective alternative. It’s an anti-social-media movement being driven by Gen Zers: the rebirth of the “dumb phone”.

Daniel Cash uses a dumb phone. 

For one week, I decided to try living with one to experience how people managed before the 2007 advent of the iPhone, to see if life was simpler, sweeter and free of anxiety.

Dumb phones include flip phones and “bricks” like the Nokia classics of yore, and are the antithesis of the modern-day smartphone, most with no internet access, social media, emails, podcasts, apps or Google Maps. For $127, I acquired the Nokia 2660 Flip 4G and a $14 five-gig SIM card, ready for a trial.

Searches for flip phones are up 15,369 per cent over the past year among Gen Z and young Millennials. Influencers, revelling in the Y2K novelty of these simpler devices, are popularising this return to slower times, with explainer videos (that are, somewhat ironically, filmed and shared via smartphones) reaching tens of millions of views on TikTok.

My first day of waking up smartphone-free was rocky. I couldn’t shake the persistent and desperate urge to reach for my usual phone, which was locked away in the kitchen. A sense of disconnection set in, accompanied by confusion about what to do with myself.

I texted friends, but the cumbersome keypad – where you had to tap every key multiple times to get a single letter – removed any enjoyment from the experience. It dawned on me why people started using abbreviations like LOL and BRB – it really would have saved people time back then. I called my sister and chatted to her. I experimented with the camera and navigated the radio function. There were a couple of rudimentary games, like Snake, which entertained me for a few minutes.

Come mid-morning, I felt rudderless and dull. As my eggs cooked, as the shower heated up, as my tram made its way along its route, I was completely, utterly bored. What’s more, I had a vague fear that war might have broken out and that, severed from Instagram’s newsfeed, I was the only person in the world who didn’t yet know about it.

But then, I reasoned, if war had broken out, might it be good not to know? At the very least, I could do without the accompanying overload of images and videos via social media. After all, it’s only in the past few decades that humans have become accustomed to constant updates on global conflict and suffering. Food for thought, I concluded, as I looked enviously at my fellow commuters scrolling TikTok.

There were other inconveniences from the get-go, too. The lack of Apple Pay meant I had to track down my debit card and carry a wallet around with me. For a university group assignment, I had to text a partner individually so she could then pass on my messages to the group chat. I went out to dinner, but was unable to order because my phone couldn’t read a QR code. I spent two days using a physical alarm clock, (you might know these from ’90s films), before realising my dumb phone did indeed have its own.

At one point – admittedly a low – I had to Google a new TikTok trend a friend was talking about, since by then I was out of the loop. As I typed the question, I felt there was an unnerving similarity to the time my dad searched, “what is a meme?”

There were positives, too. I fell asleep quicker.But I suddenly noticed just how much everyone around me was glued to their phones, because I wasn’t staring at mine. Even in situations with family and friends, it seemed as if everyone was on their phones almost constantly.

And the battery life was great. I haven’t needed to charge it once. I still read the news – albeit on my computer – but because I wasn’t carrying all the disasters of the world in my pocket, if felt more controlled, more manageable.

All that aside, I’m sorry to admit that I had a moment of Gen Z weakness and cracked after three days. It was just too inconvenient.

The morning I returned to my smartphone, I got a news notification that a large company had crashed on the sharemarket. Was there going to be a recession? Were we all going under?

The truth is that my dumb phone inconveniences were innocent in comparison to the issues which smartphones cause me. Sure, I needed to organise a Skype instead of just FaceTiming my aunt, but I dodged the FOMO-related tribulations of Instagram for a week. Yes, I was 24 hours late to the news that Sam Docherty was returning for Carlton’s elimination final, but I didn’t end that day feeling guilty about how much time I had wasted on TikTok. Or envious about a friend’s trip to the Gold Coast. Or disheartened by the usual stream of cynical comments you encounter while browsing social media. The problems my smartphone creates are much more insidious.

In my opinion, the federal government’s social media ban is kicking the can down the road. Social media is an inevitable, insipid part of modern life, and at some point we’re going to need the skills to manage it.

Raising the age is an adult-driven “solution” viewed as an imposition on us. The dumb phone movement is generated by Gen Z itself, so it at least has some credibility – though the inconveniences of a smartphone-free life are the biggest deterrents.

Admittedly, the dumb phone movement is small. And social media now sits alongside a passable haircut and non-Velcro shoes in the toolkit for surviving school, with 80 per cent of Australians aged between 13 and 24 using Snapchat and nine in 10 US teens on YouTube. But many young people realise the pain caused by our use of smartphones – like Stalin’s lackeys, we’re just too frightened to depose our tyrant.

Yet, the thinking behind the dumb phone renaissance is right. As Gen Z becomes sadder, lonelier, and more anxious, it’s time we seriously consider kicking it old school.

Daniel Cash is a law student at ANU and regular columnist.

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