How Gen Z got smart about smartphones

When university student Sammy Palazzolo posted a video to TikTok extolling the virtues of an old-fashioned flip phone over her iPhone, she never expected to become the face of a generational trend.

But that's what happened when the teenager told the world how she and her friends were ditching their smartphones on nights out after realising that “every single problem we have… everything that leads to us having a bad time, stems from our phone.”

The video exploded, attracting over 16 million views and scores of comments from those eager to escape the downsides of constant connectivity.

News articles quoting the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign student declared that Generation Z was shunning smartphones in favour of basic models that only support calls, texting and low-res photography. On TikTok, the hashtag #bringbackflipphones, which mainly features Palazzolo's videos, now has 57 million views, while the hashtag #flipphone has more than 750 million views. HMD Global, the maker of Nokia phones, reported an increase in sales of “dumb” or feature phones in the US last year, while companies such as Punkt and Light are also promoting devices aimed at those wanting to curb phone time.

For many, Palazzolo's pitch is an attractive one: keep the good things about a phone (calls, texts, photos), but reject the bad: the endless notifications, being sucked into digital riptides of imagery and chatter, the feeling of self-reproach when you can't get off your device. 

But is it really happening? Are Gen Zers, defined by the Pew Research Center as those born between 1997 and 2012, actually shunning phones packed with the latest technological whizz-bangery for the type of model popular in the early 2000s? Or is it, as some suggest, more an aesthetics-driven blip fuelled by the retro appeal of flip phones, just like the renewed popularity of digital cameras thanks to their adoption by celebrities such as Emily Ratajkowski and Charli D'Amelio?

Today no one can claim ignorance of the potentially harmful effects of excessive smartphone use; how tech companies' algorithms exploit our brain chemistry to tease, reward and hook us on their products. Studies implicate smartphone and social-media use in the increasing rates of mental distress, self-harm and suicide among young people, especially girls. While a recent global survey by the McKinsey Health Institute on social media and mental health found that “Gen Zers, on average, are more likely than other generations to cite negative feelings about social media”.

Meanwhile, the smartphone has become an increasingly indispensable tool for modern life, inserting itself into everything from work and entertainment to shopping, fitness, finance, health and travel. Ben Segal, 24, who works for a software company in Los Angeles, says he carries out half of his work on his phone. While Sam, 25, a finance worker in New York, appreciates the smartphone's benefits: “Uber is better than hailing a taxi. I haven't printed a boarding pass in years. I can even start a guided meditation with three clicks on my phone.”

Gen Z has experienced history's most tech-drenched childhood, growing up with the internet and getting their first smartphones at an early age. As Palazzolo notes in one of her videos: “We've always had internet access, we've always had social media.” Hearing about a time when that wasn't the case is “fascinating”, she says. “Our brains can't even wrap our minds around it… thinking about something so different.”

Other Gen Zers hanker for such a time, too. As Palazzolo was embracing her Nokia 2780, Logan Lane from Brooklyn was dubbed “the teenager leading the Smartphone Liberation Movement” by the New York Times. After deactivating Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat and switching to a flip phone, she felt more confident, less anxious and had a better “grasp on reality”, she told the NYT podcast First Person.

Inspired by the change, she formed a group for like-minded peers, the Luddite Club. “I think the unplugging and the getting offline is 100 per cent something bigger and something that hopefully this generation will take on, particularly as we become parents,” Lane told First Person.

In Britain, Tanya Goodin, a digital detox campaigner and the author of My Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open, says Gen Zers are acutely aware of the downsides of smartphones and “exhibit quite high levels of distress” about it. She predicts that more young people will turn away from smartphones “because it's an act of rebellion and because they've seen the downsides.”

That said, breaking up with digital life is extremely challenging. “When I speak to them, most say they can't,” adds Goodin. It's become “this ‘Faustian pact' where, in order to communicate with their peers and take part in 21st-century life, young people have to accept all the invasive and negative aspects of smartphone use.

This type of “dumbing down”– deleting apps on smartphones and turning off notifications – is one way young people are trying to cut back. Others switch to the black-and-white “grayscale” display, a tactic recommended by Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, who campaigns against the “hijacking” of our minds by tech giants.

Sophie, 20, a student at the University of Michigan, has noticed a shift in how her friends and peers are using technology. Although none has gone so far as to get a dumb phone, all are aware of the “heightened grip” their phones and social media have on them. One friend has implemented “no phone Sundays”, while others use apps like one sec which pledges to help users “fight the social media algorithms” by forcing them to take a deep breath before opening certain apps.

Other Gen Zers find a respite by chance, rather than choice. Recent university graduate Maisie, 23, reclaimed over two hours of daily life when she was forced to delete her Instagram account after thieves stole her iPhone and hacked her digital identity. “I'm actually embarrassed about how upset I was when I deleted my Instagram,” says Maisie, who feels “a lot freer now” and has more time to enjoy activities like cooking. “Even though I knew how much time I spent on Instagram, I would never, ever have deleted my account of my own accord.” 

Los Angeles-based Will Stoltz, 29, and his partner, Daisy, 25, founded the online phone store dumbwireless.com last year to help people navigate downgrading from a smartphone. For some Gen Zers it's an “aesthetic thing,” he says, a desire to look “old school”. But Stoltz also suspects many harbour “a little bit of animosity” about the fact they were handed the internet “right in their pocket” as young teenagers.

“We have to be open to new solutions,” he says, “because what we're doing right now is not working.”

Even if the majority of Gen Zers don't dump their smartphones, it's clear that many want to forge a new relationship with their devices that prioritises their wellbeing and puts them in charge.

As Palazzolo puts it in a recent video demonstrating the new landline phone she installed in her dorm: “Our brains are still developing and I want mine to develop in a way that doesn't need to rely on my phone every five seconds.”