Why are Gen Z and Millennials ditching their smartphones for dumb phones? | The Stream

people are trading in their smartphones for dumb phones hoping to reclaim their time from the grip of social media and technology so why are some young people turning their backs on connectivity and is there joy to be rediscovered beyond our phones I'm Miriam posa and this is the stream why I use a flip phone when I go out and not my regular phone in the last week alone I've wasted over 56 hours of my life to a social media addiction but I don't know how to stop short form videos like this one are like an addiction they catch your attention and now you have teenagers who were born into the phone world who say I want nothing to do with this give me my flip phone NE and jenes are using these phones to reduce their screen time to basically go on a digital D I bring it with me when I'm out and it's definitely improved my social life from color to black and white because that way it's just not going to hit the same you're not going to get the same dopamine hit and you're just going to not want to mindlessly scroll you deleted all socials to focus on [Music] yourself the average person will spend about five years of their life on their phone I myself spend around six hours a day which is around average for jenz and Millennials not proud of it but you know so are are we addicted to our devices and is it a problem joining us today to discuss this are Jose Bion an advocate for digital minimalism and offline living shayon Desa a writer experimenting with reducing her screen time and Sophie Smith Galla a digital journalist and author welcome to you all thank you so much for being here um Shion can I start with you you you turned your smartphone into a dumb phone how has that changed your relationship to your phone it has changed the relationship for better because when I realized that how addicted I was that it finally dawn on me that the device was owning me and it was not the other way around so in an attempt to preserve my mental health and Sanity I decided to use my smartphone as a dump phone when I work and when I go to sleep because that's the major chunk of my day and Jose you've created a Reddit account about dumb phones you have made a more radical shift uh haven't you and that has over 50,000 users do you think we're starting to see a shift in society's relationship with technology I definitely think so um you know I moderate the subreddit Dum phones which is also found online to to a degree but it's a little bit of a different experience because people come here to find what works best for them and then they leave to live their lives and I feel like that's the movement that we're seeing nowadays which is I want to find information I want to make it practical for my life and after that I'm just going to go and going to go live my life which I think it's a better you know ethos for our time um Sofia hundreds of families are suing some of the world's biggest tech companies for what they claim is knowingly exposing children to harmful products they claim that the social media platforms for example are harmful by Design what are your thoughts on that in the tech design space there are lots of people and they have been for some time trying to persuade social media platforms to consider alternatives to the current features that they have you don't need to be a child or have a child to to think some of these features could be a lot better for us I'm an adult and I think that plenty of elements of um algorithmic platforms especially explore feeds and how we are served content could be changed for the better that being said this is also part of a wider Trend dumb phones are part of a wider interest in returning to analog that's powered not only by Tech design not being ideal for us that's also powered by concerns around data privacy for example it's a lot of worry that we have around our social media use and it's it's emerging now in this trend of returning to analog so is Tech serving you or are you serving the tech for many of us that's the defining question in our relationship with our phones check this out I'm 24 and I've had social media for 15 years and a smartphone in my pocket every day for a decade for people a bit older smartphones and social media were an addition to their already developed life but for many people my age we've not known a single day in adult life without them and because of that I unknowingly developed a social media addiction and that endless access to entertainment meant I never really learn how to be slow or patient I tried all the screen time things leaving my phone at home deleting all my social media accounts permanently none work because I'm really bad at moderating and the smartphone always ends up back in my pocket for some reason but I actually quite enjoy testing my relationship with tech so that it serves me not the other way around and 3 months ago I started using this just to see if I could and I can and it's great and it's hugely improved my relationship with the online world because it doesn't demand anything of me it's a passive object I don't hate smartphones I just feel too immature to own one right now because I got one too young and I never learned balance with it I might go back to a smartphone one day but if I do it'll be with much clearer intention shyon research conducted in recent years suggests that excessive technology use negatively impacts mental health and development particularly around young people like digital natives we've just heard from um do you think it's particularly tricky for younger people and what were some of the struggles that you yourself faced I don't think that the struggle is only for the younger generation because there are so many uh members of my own family who discovered smartphone well into their 40s and 50s and they suddenly became so addicted that now they have all become perennial Doom scrollers and they are never living in the moment if anything I think the younger generation even though they they are born in to the technology they have a better chance of regulating their consumption because of the awareness and also because they are very very concerned about their boundaries and self-care so I have a feeling I'm a millennial so I think that the Gen Z will definitely make digital detox an integral part of their life the challenges that I face was just initially making peace with suddenly the device that was giving me everything all the dopamine becoming just a passive object uh but I slowly realized how badly I was owned by the device and it felt good to take the power back I can imagine um Jose I love the idea of it but also it does slightly terrify me uh what has improved for you since you shifted to a dumb phone and let's be honest is it actually possible to live without one these days um I think I think it's possible to live without a smartphone for sure and what a lot of people find out is that it's about your lifestyle right you need to orient your lifestyle in such a way that it allows you to have these devices or have less interaction online or have less dependency of these devices for yourself or for the time being what I personally do and what I advocate everybody to do is to find what works best for them so if your job requires a specific app two Factor authentication teams slack whatever it is use your smartphone during your work hours and then switch to a dumb phone afterwards so that you are have something that actually is designed to respect your time and attention and I think that that's what we have to think about it's not a device problem it's a lifestyle problem and a lot of the reasons why newer or you know more recent Generations gen Z or gen Alpha are having difficulty with this is because their lifestyle has always been online so going to an offline lifestyle feels jaring so they have to try they have to practice and they have to test different things for me the main benefits have always been you know mental Clarity and just having that demarcation that during a certain period of time I have these tools and a different period of time in the evenings or in the weekends I don't have them at all and I live fine without them it's just a slower lifestyle that I need to adopt well and for some of us it will obviously be a problem with self-control myself included um Sofia um we often hear this term addiction bandied about concerning uh our relationship to our phones I regularly say I'm addicted to my phone are we really addicted to our phones or is this another uh moral Panic term I've done a lot of uh reporting in the health space and whenever I've spoken to Public Health experts they always um really cavier and caution against using the the word Addiction and this goes for loads of other things not only social social media addiction as you might hear about it that automatically often stigmatizes whatever the person is going through it can even make a decision uh uh less likely to think that that person is treatable in other spaces where the word Addiction is used so for me I don't use that phrase I'd prefer to use something like problematic use or a problematic relationship with a smartphone um in this conversation you often hear about uh screen time and like there's a perfect amount of screen time that means you you won't get addicted or you won't start problematically using a phone and the reality is life isn't as simple as that it's more nuanced four hours of screen time for one individual could actually give them profound benefits especially depending on how they're using their phone uh someone else that that same four hours May mean they're not eating they're not sleeping properly or they're not seeing or or talking to somebody that they should be you know that person's use of their smartphone is more problematic than the person who that smartphone is bringing great benefit so we have to be really careful when we use terms like this uh when we're talking about dumb phones and smartphones well when we use our phones we are literally getting dopamine hits a feel-good drug that hooks Us in and ensures we stay there scrolling for hours Pete judo is a behavioral scientist here he explains how the tech is supercharging our systems the effect of dopamine is a lot stronger when the reward is unpredictable so every time you swipe on Tik Tok because it has this unpredictability your brain can never adapt to it your brain can never uh consistently predict how much dopamine is going to be released and so that actually makes the Habit a lot stronger and a lot stickier and so what you end up with are people who are addicted to these platforms the thing about technology is that technology evolves quickly whereas Evolution works very slowly right humans evolve very slowly so the the biological mechanisms that we have in our brain were not designed to uh handle this level of of dopamine right so the the reason why social media releases dopamine is because we have these builtin things that were key to our survival back when we were early humans right the need for social connection the need for forming friendss and bonds with other human beings th those were things that were beneficial to our survival as early humans right collaboration cooperation that's how we thrived as a species but now that same mechanism that was very important for us in the early days of our survival is now being hijacked through technology through artificially overloading these systems with super amounts of social approval through things like likes and Views Etc right on social media Jose um is this just an evolution problem do we just need to evolve more uh astute brains to deal with our contempary context I think part of it is is true what what they're saying you know we do have a dependency that we have not learn how to deal with and I like to agree with uh the previous Point made which is screen time is not the basis like you know there's different things that you're doing with your screens as you are interacting with them so it's not all bad or all good it's just somewhere in the middle and you have to define whether it is problematic for you or not whether you have that level of dependency I think that there are some studies that are showing right now and especially there was a book that just came out uh here in 20124 called the anxious generation that truly shows that these issues are compounding and because they're compounding we have to be careful and we have to maybe take a little bit of a step back and re-engage with tech technology learn when it's useful learn when it's not and adapt to it now we have been maybe guilty of adopting technology too quickly and saying and pring all of the benefits without evaluating all of its drawbacks so I think we need to kind of go back and forth and run more experiments in our lives to see what is actually useful and what is actually contributing to our quality of life instead of just adopting the technology just because it's the nice a new thing well shy on the subject of anxiety in this anxious Generation Um as someone who is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD do the algorithms pose a specific challenge for you definitely as much as I'm grateful to social media for helping me understand my neuro Divergence my autism my ADHD uh I would like to say that the relationship between algorithms and me is enabling but overwhelming that's what I read in a research paper because at times I just feel that it it tries to control everything that I will see how much I should see when should I see it and that's why as an autistic person it's very important for me to take the control back because whenever there is any demand or expectation placed on me I have a tendency to just run in the opposite direction so that's why I now made it a point that I will engage with social media algorithms more mindfully and I will do it in a way that serves me and Suits My Lifestyle so I use hide mute block unfollow very liberally to ensure that whatever comes up on my feed are things that I actually want to see and because I also have ADHD I I had developed a tendency of depending on my device for dopamine all the time so I even though I I may not be clinically addict to my smartphone but I was overc consuming it and I was abusing it borderl and that's why it's very important for me to make that that distinction because I could see a vast Improvement in my mental health as soon as I made the pitch oh well sh I think a lot of people would relate to exactly that um and I'm just wondering Sophia about this idea that we can sort of regulate ourselves you know we've had industry veterans including former employees from alphabet which is um Google's parent company and Facebook speaking out in recent years about how the company incentivizes employees to design features that increase the time spent uh on their products so you know is IT Tech serving us or are we serving the tech out here remember we are how Tech makes money uh we are uh when they get millions of us downloading their app they make money of us through our data and through advertisers being able to serve so many of us so of course they are going to keep introducing features that are going to encourage us to spend more and more time consuming content on on those apps that is not going to change the only thing that is going to change that is accountability and even regulation to encourage platforms to think of our health and well-being before their profit well on that subject we all know some of the smartest people around are invested in keeping our on our phones but is it possible for us to take back control as individuals or might this need corporate or even governmental reform features like screen time limit can be a useful tool for people who want to cut back on their phone use these companies do have interest in keeping people engaged so it's important for consumers to be aware of that and not just rely on tech companies to solve the problem for them ultimately it's up to each individual to take responsibility for their own digital habits at the same time I think this shift is a concern for the industry because it challenges their traditional business models if people start using their devices less this could massively impact revenue streams however I also think this presents an opportunity for the industry to evolve and create products that are more aligned with users values and needs Shon you talked about using the sort of individual responsibility route I mean how effective has that been for you you know I we hear about all these strategies turning your phone gray you know deleting certain apps uh you know putting finds on yourself I mean how have you done it and does it work initially I tried to do that I uninstalled apps or I try to self-regulate but willpower and motivation are not my strongest TOS so I decided to download an app that will put my phone in a on a scheduled detox during my work hours and when I go to school so dur during these windows my smartphone becomes an analog phone it only has the most essential features that I may need like text call some payment uh getaways and all um and apart from that there's nothing else that that I can access I I am a writer I work from home and I have internet access on my laptop so this works for me because I don't I'm not dependent on my phone as much and with the laptop I can create when I'm getting up the internet leaves me I'm not with the internet at all times um to make sure that this process works that this particular app that I use has a penalty that you can set for yourself that if you were to break the detox you have to pay x amount of money to get out of it I have made that amount so high that I do not feel tempted because I know that it will be a huge dent in my pocket uh and I I finally agreed on this model only because simply blocking or uninstalling apps were not working for me I have found myself going back and installing everything that I just uninstalled um well Jose some people have compared compared smartphones and social media apps to junk food and tobacco suggesting that lawmakers should regulate the design of these products to protect our health uh what's the word on the Reddit community on that one yeah I think there is a a big push towards more regulation from certain parts of the community and there is a conversation that needs to be had in regards to that I mean when you compare to like the for example here I have a flip phone this is one of the devices I use and this is not designed to keep your attention and time 247 however you know I do have uh another thing laying around here this one is right its design is Big it's beautiful you're able to get all the apps and all the content that you need so yeah I think regulation is definitely part of the conversation uh but we cannot just wait until that happens I think we do have to take some personal ownership and try to do what's what works best for us and this is where I come back to my original point that it may not be a device problem it's a lifestyle problem are you letting all of these things all of these Technologies integrate into your lifestyle or do you want to live a lifestyle that has maybe just a little a little bit more friction but it does have way more benefits so I think the regulation conversation is important and we do need to talk about how to design products that do not exploit our human vulnerabilities but until that happens we do have to take some ownership and we do have to do what's best for us with the tools that are available right now and it doesn't have to be a dumb phone by the way yes I hear that well Sofia despite some counter claims the correlation between phone use and unwellness has stayed quite strong with arguably as we mentioned you know an epidemic of anxiety and distraction among young people do you think that tech companies are finally heeding the concerns of the younger generation no I don't think it's going to be the younger generation that persuades Tech platforms to change the the power that needs to to change Tech platforms or rather who young people could be a little more successful persuading is probably uh governments it's probably an element of Regulation and it it's something that can really sort of hold them to the fire I'm thinking of fines fines are proving to be quite effective in other areas of Regulation when it comes to safety and protection with platforms so I think I think with this you you have to go to the top they're not really going to care when we make you know I'm a content creator myself I don't think I don't think someone you know a big border room desk meeting at a social media platform is going to watch my video and be persuaded annoyingly but certainly if we can convince policy makers and people with real power to listen to us then they can tell the social media platforms off and is part of that sere um us withdrawing our consent through less usage I mean is there a way to negotiate with these platforms through the form of power that we have which is surely our usage isn't it I am cynical that enough people would do that for it to have an effect I would be happy to be persuaded otherwise but I am not convinced that enough people would take part in that and that is because social media around the world people are dependent on it for their livelihoods their businesses they are dependent on it for contact with other people uh social media use and smartphone use can be the difference between me making money one day it could be the difference between a family someone being able to feed their family so to suddenly expect everyone to stop using something for for a day is is not I think realistic um well sh I want to ask you about the benefits now that You' started to experience through this reduction of your time on your phone tell us a little bit about that I'm sleeping well I'm waking up with a lot less anxiety because I used to be one of those people who would scroll on my my phone the last thing before I uh went to bed and first thing in the morning so now with all of that taken care of on its own I am less anxious uh I also find myself lot more creative because of the kind of work that I do I was actually losing touch I always felt that I just did have the words I had too much brain fog on all days but now by converting my smartphone into a dumb phone I have seen some changes and these changes are definitely for the better and I think I'm overall a more peaceful and happier person because I'm engaging with everything on my own terms and I am not engaging just because I'm supposed to engage so out of sight is out of mind and therefore it's a more peaceful existence For Me overall well on that note thank you to Our Guest Jose Shoni and sfia and thank you all for watching did you enjoy the show if you have a conversation or a topic that you would like to flag for us this is also your show so we want to hear from you use the hashtag or the handle AJ stream and we'll investigate take care and I'll see you soon [Music]

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 8,534

Keywords: Internet, Social Media, Technology, Gen Z, Mobile Phone, Smart Phone, Smartphone, Dumb Phone, DumbPhone, Mobile, Mobile Users, Mobile User, Millenials, Wellbeing, Mental Wellbeing, Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, AlJazeera, Al Jazeera Latest, Al Jazeera Live, AlJazeera Live, The Stream, Myriam Francois

Id: Cl3qusu6nDQ

Length: 25min 18sec (1518 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024