Parents and teens alike are trading in their smartphones for "dumber" models to help stay offline.

Adults and teens concerned about their screen time are turning in their smartphones for “dumber” models.

Buried in the settings of many smartphones is the option to look up how much on average you are staring at your phone per day.

It can bring an uncomfortable realisation, that what was supposed to be a useful piece of technology has become an obsession.

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According to a study by Harvard University, using social networking sites lights up the same part of the brain that is also triggered when taking an addictive substance. This has raised concerns about phone habits among youth.

In the UK, research by Ofcom estimates that around a quarter of children aged five to seven years old now have their own smartphone.

Links have been shown in some studies between use of social media and a negative effect on mental health - especially in children.

  • @[email protected]
    3•7 months ago

    But I want music streaming. I am not going to buy a cd player just so I can listen to music on the train.

    Also even if I had a car there is no way I’m buying CDs (or tapes if you can even buy or listen to them anywhere) for everything I want to listen to. That would be prohibitively expensive.

    But personally I don’t use social media that much. I pretty much only use Lemmy and Reddit and very occasionally Instagram.

    • @[email protected]
      4•7 months ago

      Yar + MP3’s can live on a lot of dumb phones (just fyi) but I also get this completely. Building a music library from scratch or at least for the first time in years is a big task.

    • @[email protected]English
      3•7 months ago

      but I want music streaming

      Hey, that’s fine & I get it - so much easier to shuffle a playlist than figure out which album you won’t mind hearing front-to-back again. I’m eyeballing old iPod Classics for that - I’ve seen folks mod them with sizable drives and better batteries. Dunno that I want to put in the effort, myself, but I love the idea of “upcycling” old tech.

      Getting back to my original reply: my main point was you don’t need these conveniences, much less having them built into your phone. Yep, music streaming is wonderfully handy & I use it every day, but practically speaking there are other methods.

      • @[email protected]
        2•7 months ago

        Getting back to my original reply: my main point was you don’t need these conveniences, much less having them built into your phone. Yep, music streaming is wonderfully handy & I use it every day, but practically speaking there are other methods.

        True, but I don’t need a phone either.

        Or well I actually do because of the digital ID we use where I live but apart from that I never really need to talk to anyone.

        I have a work phone (iPhone SE) and I do need that one, but I won’t install social media on that one anyways even though we are allowed to use it as a personal phone and even transfer our personal mobile number to the company. The only restriction on the work mobile is that no TikTok is allowed. A lot of the employees do use the work phone that way, but I refuse.

    • DominusOfMegadeus
      2•7 months ago

      Music streaming does not seem at all incompatible with a dumb phone. Maybe you have to go to your desktop for advanced settings, but the basics should work fine.

      Also, with their oftentimes crazy physical configurations, and strange yet wonderful assortment of doohickies, dumb phones were way cooler than most smart phones today. But I will burn this shit all down if they dont ALL have USB-C charging going forward.