Why so many people are switching from smartphones to dumbphones

The dreaded sound of your alarm wakes you from a lackluster sleep that started too late and ended too early. You reach for the source of it all, and it just so happens to be the same hunk of brushed metal and glass your alarm is blaring from.

Most people in this era are starting and ending the day by staring at the screens of their smartphones. From the moment that alarm goes off, they pick it up and check notifications to see what they missed in the night. They check it to kill time between mundane tasks. Then they wind down at night in bed, still scrolling their socials, until they finally put it down far later than planned, roll over, and try to get some sleep.

Then the cycle repeats.

According to a 2021 survey by Pew Research Center, a whopping 31% of adults said they were online “almost constantly”, up 21% from 2015.¹ Our constant attachment to smartphones has contributed to all manner of physical and mental health issues, from insomnia to eye strain and headaches.

It’s no wonder why so many people are switching from smartphones to dumbphones: traditional flip phone devices that cut out social media apps and only provide users with the practical tools they need for daily life.

What are dumbphones?

For most of us born before the early 2000s, we’ve already spent plenty of time with dumbphones. We just didn’t call them that back them. Flip phones and brick phones were the only options for mobile phones at the time.

Then that particular device with a fruit on the back debuted and the rest is history. From then to now, screens, scrolling, and social media have become almost an involuntary compulsion ever since smartphones landed in our pockets. They have come to dominate so much of our lives, habits, and how we spend our time that an almost inevitable backlash is taking place.

We had to go through the age of the smartphone (for all their benefits and growing shortcomings) to get that term for the flip phones people are flocking back to: the dumbphone.

The information overload, health drawbacks, privacy risks, and content risks to minors from smartphones now cast a more nostalgic light on the relative innocent simplicity of the flip phones we had before. Only now, dumbphone manufacturers are reintroducing them with modern components, better software, and features we’ve come to depend on in smartphones, but without so many of the negatives.

Dumbphones offer many practical tools while removing the distractions and time sinks of smartphones.

While smartphones have given us access to a wide range of useful tools and all of the world’s knowledge in a pocket-sized package, it’s also full of distractions. Chief among them is social media. Just be honest with yourself, if you’re waiting for the bus or a table at a restaurant — or waiting anywhere for anything, really — what’s your gut instinct to pass the time?

Most people grab their smartphones and start scrolling. Now, you might think: what’s the harm? It’s just passing the time anyway. The harm isn’t necessary killing time but rather building habits over time that bleed into other areas of life. Eventually, our brains get the urge to check our notifications during work tasks and divides our attention at other important moments in life.

A 2023 study published in Nature examined how smartphones affect our cognitive performance and attention spans.² The 49 student volunteers aged 20 to 34 were divided into to two groups, one with smartphones on their desks, powered off, and another whose devices were placed outside the room. Even the mere presence of a powered off device was shown to distract attention from the tasks the participants completed.

Many of today’s dumbphones have a lot of the convenient tools we’ve come to rely on, like GPS, weather, calendar, email, and more, but they lack web browsers and the social media apps that we find so distracting. Some dumbphones are even talk-only, freeing up the user’s attention to be completely present in the moment. These back to basic flip phones are an excellent option for anyone trying to avoid distractions at work and also be more mindful during down time.

Dumbphones eliminate a lot of the health risks of smartphones.

Oh, how innocent we were when smartphones first made it on to the scene. A lot of the conveniences of constant connectivity overshadowed the negatives, which creeped in unnoticed for many people until only recently. The effects of constantly staring at a screen have more direct impacts than distracting us away from work we should be doing.

I can personally say it negatively affected my sleep patterns, and I’m far from the only one. A 2021 study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that, of 1,043 participants, 61.6% reported poor sleep. In the group that disclosed smartphone addiction, 68.7% had poor sleep compared to 57.1% that did not disclose smartphone addiction.³

On top of poor sleep, smartphone use can contribute to several other direct physical and mental health impacts, including neck pain, back pain, eye strain, weight gain, depression, and mood disorder.⁴

The root of these problems is all of the addictive consumption patterns we easily fall into, whether it’s binging video content or doomscrolling on social media apps. Even content that makes us feel worse mentally is hard to put down, when it’s there to be consumed.

That’s the key part of the equation. With dumbphones, there is no browser, video, or social media apps to get sucked into in the first place. These health risks associated with smartphones become moot once your device only has practical tools necessary for daily life. Sleep patterns improve, your back and neck thank you for no longer hunching over a screen, and you don’t get trapped in the latest outrage vortex ripping a hole across social media.

Dumbphones remove a lot of the privacy risks of smartphones.

The more dependent we become on smartphones, the more we trust them with important aspects of our personal lives. With every app we download, with every set of terms and conditions we accept, another company ends up with our personal data that they then sell to third parties.

We’d be lucky if annoying spam texts and emails were the only outcome from surrendering our data, but it’s much more serious than that. These third parties, and even some major corporations whose apps we have on our smartphones, do not take great care of our data sometimes.

The Identity Theft Resource Center released a January 2024 report that recorded 3,205 data breaches in 2023. That’s a 78% increase from the 1,801 breaches in 2022 and a new all-time record since breaches have been tracked.⁵ Essentially, it’s only a matter of time before your personal data gets caught up in a breach, if it hasn’t been already.

Of course, no apps or browser on a dumbphone means you’re at far less risk of handing your data over in the first place than with a smartphone. Many dumbphone companies, like Sunbeam Wireless, are very conscientious about the safety of your data and don’t collect, share or sell customer data.

Dumbphones without browsers and apps limit minors’ exposure to social media

Although we only had flip phones back in the day when I was in middle school and high school, even then I remember how strong the desire was to get your first phone. In some ways it was a sign of status, and it also represented a new level of freedom. That desire has only increased with smartphones, and kids inevitably are wanting their first at increasingly younger ages.

That desire to belong is only natural, to join their friends in the social media ecosystem that has become so ubiquitous for the generations that don’t know a time without it. However, we’re increasingly finding just how harmful social media access is to children who still have many years of development ahead of them.

Nearly a third of US teens say they spend too much time on social media,⁶ and even 40% of children ages 8-12 years old use social media despite most apps requiring users to be age 13 or older.⁷ Social media access at young ages poses risks like body image concerns, a higher risk of being a victim of cyberbullying, becoming a target of online predators, and participating in dangerous viral trends.

If you have a child or other young family members, it might be smart to start them out on a dumbphone rather than a smartphone. They still have access to a communication device for emergencies but will avoid so many of the problems affecting today’s youth due to widespread smartphone access.

Sunbeam Wireless offers a wide range of dumbphones tailored to exactly what tools you need.

So, if you’re wondering why so many people are switching from smartphones to dumbphones, maybe the better question is…why aren’t you?!

Life is short, and there’s so much to experience — why should we spend such a huge chunk of it behind a screen? Consider untethering from it and trying out a dumbphone to free yourself from so many of the problems brought on by smartphone addiction. Today’s flip phones aren’t what they used to be — they’re better!

Sunbeam Wireless is a leading dumbphone retailer with its own in-house software, offering a wide range of models that offer just the right feature set for your needs, whether you prefer a talk-only device or access to features like weather, hotspot, and navigation. The line of F1 Horizon flip phones offers 10 different models in a sleek package while the F1 Pro line gets you the same feature sets in a rugged device resistant to water, dust, and drops. Check out the shop to find the right dumbphone for you, view the FAQ to answer any questions you might have, or contact our support team for more info! ☀