- Smartphones can be overwhelming.
- Simpler phones are appealing, but probably not the answer.
- The Barbie phone is pink.
The new official Barbie phone is pink and proudly dumb, and it might just be the perfect phone for you.
The appeal of the “dumb” phone or feature phone is ever-growing. As our smartphones consume more of our time and attention, we might yearn for the simpler times when we weren’t face-down in TikTok or participating in video calls while making Uber Eats deliveries on ride-share scooters. But why do simpler gadgets appeal to us? And what makes the new Barbie phone so sensational?
“People are attracted to the idea of having a “dumb” feature phone over a smartphone for a variety of reasons, including the belief that they will spend less time engaged in doomscrolling or browsing social media if they didn’t have access to certain apps, potential for improvement in mental health and well-being, and better connectedness with those physically around them,” Courtney Morgan, licensed therapist (LPCC) and founder of Counseling Unconditionally, told Lifewire via email.
Not So Smart
We love our phones, but we love them too much. It’s great to be able to stay in touch with friends, play games, listen to music and podcasts, navigate, and pay for everything, but it’s not so great when we find ourselves waking our phones reflexively whenever we’re faced with more than a few seconds of without stimulation.
“Smartphones were meant to help us be more creative and connected, but they instead became slot machines harvesting our attention. They flood us with notifications and bright candy colors, severing our brain’s ability to sense if we’re hungry, anxious, or bored. We even forget to breathe when we look at these bright, addictive screens (‘screen apnea’). We’re lured into wasting hours of our time without noticing it,” Anjan Katta, CEO and founder of Daylight Computer Co., told Lifewire via email.
Many of us realize this is happening and even wish we could reduce our reliance on our phones, even while we still use them for the essentials. And being hardened members of a runaway capitalist society, the most obvious answer is to buy another gadget. The so-called dumb phone offers the essentials without the distractions, or so the thinking goes.
“Getting a dumb phone allows one to be connected without having to be connected everywhere at all times,” Jennifer Kelman, LCSW and mental health expert, told Lifewire via email. “More and more kids and adults are becoming addicted to their devices with all the bells and whistles, so dumbing it all down may help lessen the addiction. Many parents are turning to phones with more simple features such as the Pinwheel phone, which allows parents to monitor it all and give more access as the child gets older.”
Barbie World
Enter the Barbie phone, which is at once a cynical cash-in, an attempt to trick kids into not wanting a smartphone, and something quite excellent in its own right:
“The Barbie Phone is better than modern smartphones because it has a microSD card slot, FM radio, user-removable battery, and a 3.5mm headphone jack,” Corbin Davenport, a software developer and tech journalist, wrote on Mastodon.
Those are indeed compelling features, although some are still available on smartphones. But is buying yet another gadget really the answer? After all, it’s entirely possible to get everything you need from a phone, and no more, using the one you already have. Plus, feature phones like the Barbie phone lack essentials like an excellent camera or a chip that lets you use secure payment methods.
“Although it is possible to navigate modern life without a smartphone, I do believe we often take the convenience of smartphones for granted,” says Morgan. “I believe the best way forward is by self-regulating our smartphone usage so that we can utilize the convenience of smartphones when needed and have boundaries at the same time.”
But a lack of ability to self-regulate is what got us into this conversation in the first place. My ideal phone might be one with a great camera, Apple Pay or Google Pay, maps, music, and podcasts, and maybe a messaging app. But the ideal phone for you will, of course, be quite different.
Obviously, there’s no easy answer, but the fact that we’re asking the question is at least a start.
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- Why Do We Love the Idea of Dumb Phones So Much?
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