Dumbphones are on the rise. Young people in particular seem to increasingly opt for these simple phones Nokia 8210 without WhatsApp, social media and addictive apps. The big question is: why? On the revival of dumbphones.
The Resurgence of Dumbphones
What do singer Ed Sheeran, singer Selena Gomez and Prime Minister Mark Rutte have in common? That's right: they all don't use a smartphone, but a so-called 'dumbphone'. As the name suggests, such a device has a lot fewer options than its 'smart' brother.
Dumbphones β which are also called retro telephones or feature phones β do not have a camera (or a much lesser variant), for example, they cannot download apps and they cannot watch Netflix.
Some models can work with popular programs such as WhatsApp, Google Maps and Facebook, but that is usually not the case. Trick Knowledge With a dumbphone you can text and make calls and if you're lucky (via a roundabout route) install WhatsApp, but that's it.
Roughly speaking, the dumbphone has remained stuck in 2005 in terms of possibilities, while smartphones continue to develop. Nevertheless, the retro telephones have remained unabated and are even on the rise.
Retro telephones are becoming more popular
While 'only' 400 million dumbphones were sold worldwide in 2019, more than 1 billion were sold in 2021, according to research company Counterpoint Research . That is a significant number when you consider that a total of 1.4 billion smartphones were sold last year: more than 12 percent less than in 2020.
Furthermore, software company SEMrush revealed that the number of Google searches for dumbphones increased by almost 90 percent between 2018 and 2021. And while Dutch user figures are difficult to obtain, the British branch of consultancy Deloitte reports that 1 in 10 people in the United Kingdom using a feature phone.
The benefits of dumbphones
There are several reasons to choose a retro telephone over a smartphone. Prime Minister Rutte, for example, prefers to type on a physical keyboard instead of a virtual keyboard.
The Leiden university newspaper Mare attended a meeting of the Prime Minister with students and wrote that Rutte also likes the quietness of a dumbphone. After all, you don't have to keep track of WhatsApp conversations and groups, which saves a lot of distraction. It is also impossible to scroll on Facebook and Instagram, you will not receive notifications of new emails and NU.nl will not send you notifications of important news.
No distraction or choice stress
Many people therefore choose a dumbphone because they want to spend less time on their phone. For example, a 2020 study by the University of Pittsburgh (United States) shows that people use their smartphones on average for 3.5 hours a day.
The US study is based on a sample of 325 people. A Dutch-Belgian study from the same year points in the same direction and shows that the Dutch use their smartphone for an average of four hours a day.
An additional advantage of less distraction is that you are less monitored with a dumbphone. Most smartphone apps invade your privacy in some way, but a retro phone can't download apps at all. So you have less trouble with tracking.
Outside of mental health, there are very practical benefits to having a dumbphone. Many feature phones, for example, last much longer than a smartphone, because they do not have an energy-guzzling screen. Weekly battery life is not uncommon in the non-smartphone world.
The design is also often more sustainable. The Nokia 3310 dumbphone, which was reissued in 2017, does not have a vulnerable design, but a housing that can take a beating. This while many smartphones today are made of fragile and scratch-sensitive materials such as glass.
Who Use Retro Phones?
You might expect that mainly older target groups use dumbphones. After all, they have experienced the rise of mobile phones and perhaps want to buy a feature phone out of a feeling of nostalgia.
However, Light Phone sales figures show something completely different. This retro telephone maker from New York mainly sells to people between 25 and 34 years old.
In conversation with the BBC , co-founder Kaiwei Tang says that the Light Phone is actually intended as a second phone, but that most customers use it as their primary device. According to Tang, many people are done with their smartphone because the device demands continuous attention, unlike dumbphones.
Scanning QR codes is getting tricky
As far as the benefits of dumbphones. After all, there are also disadvantages. YouTube is full of experience stories of (mostly young) people who have renounced their smartphone and now use a dumbphone.
For example, YouTuber Ashton Womack finds it difficult that her retro phone (the Nokia 225) does not have Google Maps. As a result, every time she sets out, she has to visualize the map of her destination in advance, or write down the times and routes of public transport lines.
Also tricky: QR codes. These barcodes have become extremely popular thanks to the corona pandemic and are used by restaurants, for example, to let guests view their menu. Womack explains that her dumbphone is unable to scan QR codes.
Dumbphones are getting smarter too
Feature phones are ideal for some people, but a bit too simple for others. A company like Light Phone is trying to solve this problem.
For example, their latest model, the Light Phone II, can play music and podcasts. The simple phone also has bluetooth and you can use it as a personal hotspot. Things like social media, e-mail and news apps, an internet browser and distractions, however, never come up.
While some people want to switch to a dumbphone, certain things hold them back. For example, many simple telephones cannot handle WhatsApp and that is a realistic problem in 2022. But, there are also retro telephones that do have WhatsApp . We have listed these in the article below.
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