What ever happened to flip phones?

...And that whole 'dedicated purpose device' attitude?

The phones that flipped and the phones with keyboards were aged out by the birth of the touchscreen. Nowadays, if you find a phone without a touchscreen it’s likely either in your grandparent’s house or a museum. In year ten, I went on a trip with school to the media museum and I still remember the shock on my teacher’s faces when we saw a Nokia 3310 behind a glass case , a relic to times long and every adult suddenly seemed ready to count their wrinkles in the glass reflection. You can still get some phones which favour numpads but very few big name brands really make them anymore because there just isn’t as much interest in them, and from how colossal the reach of smartphones have been, they’re so impractical to use now it’s just not worth it. These phones were ‘the future’ before the app store was a thing, which means it’s not just social media you’d miss out on. We don’t truly realise how much we use our smartphones for everything but where these flip phones offer an alternative which limits interaction to just calls, texts, and taking the occasional photo, they can’t be anything else: transportation tickets, language learning apps, games (other than snake), credit cards and streamable music are all off limits.

I think they’ve resurfaced in online popularity in the last year, half the audience seems to be focused on their Y2K appeal, there’s a level of aesthetic envy I get watching retro icons end their calls with a satisfying little snap! Or personally, I love seeing the little charms that were dangled out of the headphone jack giving that extra level of personalisation especially when my Google Pixel 6a is exclusively Bluetooth compatible. But for me and many others, we were too young to own a phone at all when these were popular, and even if we weren’t to use them on a regular basis, the filthy truth is that we want them to mesh with our low rise jeans and baby tees - which is an entirely other conundrum in itself, and inevitably after realising the lack of options flip phones give us in the modern day, it’s no surprise that so many influencers who invest in these devices end up ripping the SIM card out and retreating to the comfort of familiar, reliable smartphones. Besides, if you’re watching a TikTok star using a flip phone it ruins the illusion when you think about what they’re posting on.

The less cynical response I have to the question of ‘why are they back’ is that people are just… genuinely sick of it all. Sick of our reliance on technology, it’s a fair thing to want to give up and in my own experience, I’ve been trying to limit how much I use my phone for the better part of two years now, and the one thing I really have noticed is when I’m not looking at the phone, the rest of the world still is. It also gets a bit depressing after a while, thinking more about making the change to a ‘dumb phone’ gives me uncomfortable FOMO, without social media there are so many of my friends I’d lose contact with, so many group chats I’d miss out on, not to mention my grip on pop culture outside of the traditional news broadcasts. In addition to this, it’s the realisation that with our entire (at least in the west) population being so connected to our phones it’s like a second heart (or to be as cynical as possible once more, a fill-in brain when we’re too exhausted to daydream), we’ve shaped our environment and lives to integrate these compact devices. There are certain things, especially aimed at the younger generations, that would be off limits if we didn’t have our smartphones on us. Some of us don’t even have a choice, I can only order my medication through the NHS app, which requires installing manually. Then there are those who regularly travel - Uber, Trainline and any flight apps are suddenly off limits. I watched this reliance in full force when my dad’s phone suddenly powered off to never turn back on again; he went on Amazon to order a new one from his laptop but the trap he found himself in was almost paradoxical. The size of the purchase needed him to verify himself from his secondary device… his existing phone… the other option was to verify through his bank… which was only accessible through the same phone.

I did wonder about the practicality of a flip phone in 2025 and tried it out for a bit. I think it depends on your particular circumstance and also how strict you can really be with yourself. To ignore the obvious difficulty of detaching from my Instagram feed, very mundane things begun to feel like more of a hassle and to be honest, it felt disgustingly beautiful. I felt bothered by how long it took to type a simple text message pressing the same tough little buttons repeatedly until I got one word, but it did make me realise how easier it would be to call my friends. So I did! We’d call and we’d talk, sometimes for a couple minutes on the way to meet up, sometimes for hours just to vent about something going on in our separate lives but I felt a lot more fulfilled talking to everyone, and that ‘snap!’ to end the call is as fun as it looks. Another vice to be grappled with was basic convenience with day-to-day life, as I already mentioned, we’ve shaped our world to slot in with our phones so cosily we don’t consider the alternatives but it only takes a minute or two to realise those options are still around - I could use my bank card on buses, complete my Duolingo streak from my laptop, I could download MP3s from YouTube for music, even if it wasn’t ethical, https://cobalt.tools/ was a godsent for file conversion. After a while, it did start to feel like I’d just bought money to have a second little accessory rather than a device to partner my lifestyle though, and I grew quite guilty with myself for spending this money and these resources when I could’ve just deleted Instagram and such from my smartphone and trusted myself from there, but despite wanting to advocate for conservation of resources and reluctance to impulse purchase, even on my smartphone I felt tempted by the play store, and the ever-lasting integration of socials everywhere I looked, the feasibility to everything and the numbness of the blue light. On the flip phone, it just felt difficult, primitive and a hindrance and that was how I wanted my technology to be. It always stayed in my bag, out of my hand or pocket and on late nights and early mornings, I was reading or wondering, or hearing my breathing and it felt like muscles I didn’t even know I had were relaxing.

I did stop eventually due to preferring live train tracking online rather than leaving my intercity transport in the hands of fate, however I was recently compelled to revert back which made me want to write this essay. I’d highly recommend it for absolutely anyone, don’t smash your smartphone just yet as they can be good to have around as a more dedicated computer, for trains, or banking, or prescription orders, but no harm comes to them or you if it just stays in a drawer with the laptop and Nintendo Switch. For anyone reading this who thinks a simpler phone would be appealing, I’d highly recommend the Nokia 2660, the games are a bit crap and it can’t hold much music or songs but it gets the job done (and encouraged me to research a proper MP3 player for going on walks). There are others out there too, ones with app stores but limited storage, even custom fancier ‘dumbphones’ with exactly the number of apps you need on it and nothing more. It’s a switch that doesn’t suit everyone, and unlike smartphones with their arrogant versatility and compatibility, you have to make it fit to your lifestyle. Like getting clean from any other addiction, there is a withdrawal, there is a back and forth, but there is satisfaction and there is a perverted little privilege to being a bit more awake.