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‘We need to go places and touch things’: the people turning away from smartphones
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Guardian
Posted: June 10th, 2026
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/12...
Almost two decades after the first iPhone was released, a trend for lower tech devices appears to be taking shape, with a growing minority swapping their smartphones for “dumb phones”. With new models such as the Boring Phone, the trend is partly being fuelled by young people’s suspicion of the data- and attention-harvesting tech they have grown up with, as well as a bid to live more offline. And while smartphones are the obvious target for this trend, the “newtro” (a portmanteau of “new” and “retro”) movement is heralding a revival of analogue media, including cassettes and fanzines, against the backdrop of the enduring, and much-heralded, vinyl boom. While Jess Perriam, 39, had become exhausted by her Instagram feed, she knew she wanted to keep a window into the lives of others. So she turned to Postcrossing, a site that connects people who want to send and receive postcards from strangers around the world. “I still wanted to have that connection with people and learn more about different cultures, but not necessarily while being aggressively marketed at,” she said, adding that she receives “stacks of reading recommendations” through the post. The community has more than 800,000 members across 207 countries, with 77 million postcards received since it launched in 2005. As well as writing to people she has never met, she also corresponds with an old friend in the US. “It forces me to sit down and think, what do I want to communicate to my friend?”
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