#bringbackcameras?

The trend of blowing up new smartphones into ever more gigantic data collection machines does not seem to be fully accepted, at least by a growing GenZ community: One of the stars at Design Week in Milan the other day was the Boring Phone, a rather primitive flip phone that can only make calls, text and take photos with a 0.3 megapixel camera. Apps? Nothing there. Social media? Not a chance.

The Boring Phone is just one example of an increasing number of so-called feature phones that are particularly popular with Generation Z. “The Boring Phone is part of a new dumbphone boom based on Generation Z's distrust of the data- and attention-gathering technologies they grew up with,” writes the British Guardian. Significantly, Tiktok posts under the hashtag #bringbackflipphones have pushed the topic of feature phones to the extreme. Joe Birch, technology analyst at market research company Mintel, notes that over 50 percent of Generation Z respondents say they would like to be less connected to the digital world. And according to research company GWI, Gen Z is the only generation whose time spent on social media has decreased since 2021. Many people no longer see the internet as a virtual place for “freedom & fun”, but rather as a surveillance tool for companies and governments.

In terms of absolute sales figures, there are naturally - still - large gaps between regular smartphones and their slimmed-down siblings: Currently, 90 percent of all portable phones sold are state-of-the-art smartphones. On the other hand, if the 10 percent of buyers who currently obviously prefer to use a feature phone also prefer a camera to a smartphone as a camera, the camera market would increase about fifteenfold. Dear Tiktoks, why don't you get one out? #bringbackcameras.