The same can be said for music. Sometimes I just don't want the opportunity for distraction and use my iPod instead of my phone.
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Gen Z moving to Flip Phones
- Thread starter Mainsail
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If YOU get roasted for being slow to respond to those people’s posts, then THEY are the problem. Not you. Keep doing you brother.
Why not a CD disc-man? I remember there were tons of varieties of these in stores back in 2003. I remember walking in a store and seeing an entire isle of different types and colors of disc-mans. I also remember walking in a store in 1997 and seeing lots of different types of colors of cassettes.
I know. That's why I always reply with the same sentence since 2019:
"If it's urgent, then call me right away. Never chat. Because for me chat is a topic of a not so important issue from you."
Try walking and suddenly the discman got bumped. The track will skipped or the discman will misbehave a bit. With iPod, that issue is nonexistent because it's digital. The same reason why I'm still rocking my iPod nano 6th instead of the Apple Watch. No notifications, just pure musical pleasure.
Or if you want, you could go with cassette Walkman players. No skipping issue because of incidental bumping while walking.
Social media apps use the same psychological mechanisms as slot machines. If you don’t get rid of them you WILL be drawn back to them. They’re all addictive (literally) by design.
If you're in a country with 3G still up, quite a lot!
Basic web browsing, google maps (still works), email, imessage, Youtube (still works), camera, calc... all the regular apps. Lots of old apps and games too. iCloud syncs contacts and calendars too. Reddit works. Can play music and videos. I use the Notes app a lot.
I already have an iPod, and I imagine a discman would be a lot less convenient
The article isn't about folding phones, it's about traditional flip phones without social media etc.
Those old devices are no longer or really hard to find in stores these days,. Personally I have no idea why one would use a tape player, CD player, or iPod in 2023. I mean you can turn off notifications on iPhone and Apple Watch.
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As a Gen Z, thank you and very well said. I haven’t seen anyone doing this, and this article is a overgeneralization for sure.
I have become more and more cognizant of my technology use though. I quit personal social media when I realized how much of a negative impact it was having on me. One of main reasons I got an Apple Watch cellular plan is to be able to be away from my phone/iPad/computer but still be able to be reached/reach someone if needed. I still think I spend too much time online, but I’ve been making a concerted effort to spend more of that time learning and reading rather than wasting it.
I don’t think people realize how bad social media is for you, and it can feel exhausting to be constantly connected. I think about how much time I spent as a kid just able to let my mind roam freely, but that rarely happens now since I’m constantly bombarding it with screen time, content consumption, and notifications. I think we could all benefit from trying to be more aware, purposeful, and restrictive in our technology use.
Also, the irony of me saying this on a tech enthusiast social media site isn’t over my head.
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I am an older member of Gen Z and while I have no intention to start using a flip phone, I have been making an effort to reduce my time spent online over the past year (and not just social media; people often cite social media as a unique problem, and it is, but internet addiction more broadly is also an issue. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok aren't the only culprits; spending an inordinate amount of time watching YouTube, posting on Reddit, listening to podcasts, or even posting on forums like this one can all be a part of the same problem). As they say, one needs to "touch grass" from time to time. I know the internet is a problem for me when I begin to feel genuinely anxious when I haven't been online in a while, when I make a pledge to myself to stay away from my phone on a vacation or a visit with friends and instead fail miserably and end up glued to my phone the whole time, or I find myself "doom scrolling" and going down dark rabbit holes of increasingly cynical, despairing, and negative posts and articles. None of this can be good for me. I'm very aware of the problem, but I've often struggled to do anything about it. Like any addiction, I sometimes improve and then "relapse" and spend an entire day online (and regret it all the more the next day).
So while this article may be an exaggeration, I'm encouraged by any sign of young people making an effort to limit their time online or with tech as I know how this stuff is intentionally addicting and how hard it can be to "quit".
So while this article may be an exaggeration, I'm encouraged by any sign of young people making an effort to limit their time online or with tech as I know how this stuff is intentionally addicting and how hard it can be to "quit".
It's a behavioral addiction. Simply deleting an app that you can easily install again won't work, especially not when all of your peers are still on them and you feel you're missing out.
Obviously, you can still access social media on a laptop or PC. But it's the constantly in your palm/pocket/purse grab-and-check every few seconds that's really making it hard for these kids/teens to think about anything else.
Getting a "dumb phone" makes a lot of sense since the dopamine hit you can get from reading a text or getting a call is a fraction of what TikTok, Facebook or the Internet(videos, images, games, apps) can do.
And there's no algorithm involved in messaging or getting calls, no business is presenting new friends and having interesting people call you about "drama" or trends going on to get you to use more minutes or data. Social media does that (metaphorically), it makes more money the more you interact with it.
Exactly.
But it's actually not the content itself but the effortless cue (notifications) and ability to act on the cue with next to no thought or effort that makes smartphones/social media so addictive.
It's the expectation of something gratifying potentially happening that's causing the addiction.
TVs, laptops and desktop computers can be equally addictive if you have a lifestyle that allows you to sit in front of them all day (like when working from home).
But since they are impossible or much more impractical to carry around, you'll eventually escape them for short or long periods of time where you can then break the "cue - craving - response - reward" loop.
Having our cellphones and smartphones be one device is what's really terrible for so many -You maybe want to leave all the apps and social media at home sometimes, but then you can't text or make a call when you're out so you're, in a sense, forced to bring all of it with you all of the time, whether you want it or not.
Damn that sucks. Gen Z is missing out lol. Long live edge. 2G. Lol.
Young people have different lives to adults. I have friends who threw their education away by spending their whole time texting under the desks during class in high school. I remember seeing classmates having Facebook open 24/7 in my first year of community college.
I stopped using social media like around 2013, but that is how I made it work, just using it on the computer at home and not having it on me at all times.
I stopped using social media like around 2013, but that is how I made it work, just using it on the computer at home and not having it on me at all times.
Child, it took me reading about four responses before realising the OP meant old fashioned flip phones, not Samsung’s flips!
