The landline phone is making a comeback and your brain will thank you

There’s a lot of nostalgia for the culture of the 90s and early 2000s right now. One reason for this is the novelty of analog forms of communication. After all, having your WhatsApp group chat in mind, scrolling for the appropriate emoji, doesn’t feel as good as calling your friend on the landline, twirling the cord around your finger like Carrie Bradshaw. But the idea of ​​relying on a plug-in telephone to communicate with anyone outside your household seems practically antiquated. After all, a landline is completely unnecessary in the age of smartphones. At least, it was. Now, young people are turning to it as a way to cure their smartphone obsession.

15 years ago, 62 percent of Americans said landlines were a necessity of life, according to a study by Pew Research CenterHowever, with the advent of smartphones, landline usage declined rapidly, According to , by the end of 2022, 72,6 percent of adults and 81,9 percent of children lived in households without a landline, National Health Interview Survey,

New-Wave Landline

But as landlines have become endangered, a wave of young people have discovered it might be the easiest way to fix their brain rot, as young people are increasingly concerned about the effects of their screen time on their mental health, attention span and ability to think critically. there are calls to bring back Traditional landlines, but also a new approach to analog devices. Katherine Goetz is an AI teacher and online creator (known online as @askcatgpt). Goetz has designed a landline phone This is called a physical phone that connects to your smartphone, allowing you to take calls through your device without picking it up. Video The post he shared on Instagram sharing the concept has been viewed over 2 million times and even though the phone hasn’t been launched yet, the brand has over 38,000 followers on its Instagram account.

The idea of ​​a physical phone is to prevent doomscrolling and reduce your screen time. Think about it – the reason you pick up the phone is probably a matter of practicality. Maybe you go to text your friend to make sure they’re still on plans or you realize you forgot to call your mom, and 30 minutes later find yourself in a terrible crisis. Landlines negate this – it still allows that communication without the temptation to go to your For You page in the first place.

Others are finding new ways to embrace the landline idea. Erin Weakland (,erinwakeland.studio) shared a TikTok video, which has now received over 50,000 views, about her extremely literal approach to landlines. Weakland’s method involves attaching his smartphone to a chain attached to his wall, creating a literal landline. This means that whenever she wants to use her phone, she has to sit in one place, on a chair. “It’s a physical boundary that helps my digital boundaries,” he said in the video. “I’ve tried opalI have tried using screen borders, I have thought about purchasing Brick“Weakland told MashableBut so far, whatever effort she has tried hasn’t curbed her screen time, “The nature of my work as an artist, I have to be online, I have to post online and there’s a lot of entertaining stuff about it, so I like this way of monitoring and using my usage patterns,” says Weakland,

Kasady, 29, is another creator who went viral for sharing her thoughts on landlines, which includes putting her iPhone in “landline mode,” meaning she only gets call and text notifications. “On days I work in landline mode, my screen time varies by a few hours,” Cassady said. MashableIn the viral video, she claims that her screen time has reduced to 29 minutes per day, which is quite low, UK average Of five hours and six minutes. “More than that, it is [given me an] Awareness of how often I’m using my phone,” she adds.

kids are going analog

Cassady has two young children and she says they play a big role in why she’s trying to stay away from her phone. “I don’t want my kids to be constantly looking at my phone, and I want to have healthy relationships with technology,” she says, and she’s not the only parent concerned about screen time. In fact, Research finds that children’s screen time increased by 52 percent between 2020 and 2022, and nearly 25 percent of children and youth use their smartphones in a way that is consistent with behavioral addiction. bearing this in mind, 83 percent Many parents believe it is important to limit their children’s screen time.

Chet Kittleston is a father of three and started thinking about children’s relationships on social media when his 10-year-old daughter asked him for a smartphone. He explains, “I really didn’t want to give her a cell phone. I didn’t think it was right for my kids to have it in their pocket all the time and be constantly on alert.” MashableHe looked back at his childhood and how he communicated with his friends and realized that landlines were the first social network among his group of friends, Why can’t the same be true for his children too? With that idea, Kittelston launched tin boxA landline phone specifically designed for children. It works the same way as a traditional landline, but it connects to an app, so parents can control who their kids can call and receive calls, and set a do not disturb schedule. “We’ve spent years running toward what we thought was forward progress, and I think we’re all scratching our heads now wondering whether all of these were steps forward, or some of them backward?” Kittelston says.

according to Dr. Ysabel GerardA senior lecturer in digital communications at the University of Sheffield, it can be predicted that people are looking to the past to find solutions to modern problems. “Nostalgia often operates in 20 to 30-year cycles, so it’s really normal to see people going back to things like landlines or other wired technologies,” explains Gerard. Nostalgia is key to the marketing of both tin cans and physical phones, with both companies offering phones that look like retro landlines. “The nostalgic angle is a physical reminder of what it was like when we were more connected and more offline,” Kittelston says. And according to recent research from broadband comparison site Uswitch, 21 percent of Gen-Z use landline phones for commuting.

The era of smartphone-phobia

This desire for analog forms of communication is largely due to the current moral panic surrounding smartphones. 41 Percentage of people living in the UK say they use their phones too much and 31 percent are taking steps to try to use their phones less. But according to Gerard, this concern about phone use may be misplaced. She says, ,Young people are turning to analog forms of communication because they are told that the technology they are using is bad for them, not because they themselves believe that it is., Digital culture experts say it is too simplistic to conclude that smartphones are bad and landlines are good and that this approach may not be helpful. ,[Smartphones provide] There are so many more ways to communicate and our tendency is that when we experience nostalgia, we over-romanticize the past and assume that what came before was inherently better,” she explains. In fact, when landlines became popular in the late 20th century, similar conversations were taking place about how they would affect youth. life magazine shared a photo story since about 1956 “Phone obsessed teen“, in which they are using the same retro landlines that are now presented as the solution to the brain rot caused by excessive screen time.

Dr Briony Hannell is Lecturer in Sociology and Ambassador at the University of Manchester rehab uk And she says changing your relationship with your smartphone and reducing your screen time isn’t as easy as switching to a landline. She says, “It is not coincidental that the term ‘doomscrolling’ entered the cultural lexicon during the pandemic – a pandemic that followed a decade of austerity measures and declining living standards in Britain and much of Western Europe.”

But that’s not the only reason it can be so hard to quit scrolling. 71 100 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds get their news through social media and with so much political turmoil going on, from the climate crisis to the war in Gaza, Haenel says: “Shocking news about this can feel like a moral obligation to bear witness.” This makes the decision to switch to a landline more complex, and she adds that: “It happens on platforms designed to maximize incentives and engagement.”

Despite this, finding small ways to reduce your screen time is something that can help many people feel better and have more control over their phones. Gerard says that while it will certainly be helpful for many people, abandoning modern technology altogether may not be the answer. “If young people stop using smartphones and start using landlines, they will experience their relationships and identity differently,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean your life will be better or worse. Sometimes people find solace in online spaces because they provide them with identities and cultures and communities that they don’t have access to.” But Kittelston says Tin Can users are finding a sense of togetherness with their new landlines: “I think what’s enduring is people’s desire to connect more, more intimately and personally, with their family and their friends and their partners,” he says.

We are all yearning for a better sense of community right now. You might find it chatting with grandparents on rotary dial-up, or maybe it’s in obscure corners of Reddit. The phone may not be involved at all, but, at this point, that seems unlikely.