When Lydia Peabody saw her friend pull out a flip phone at a party last year, she burst out laughing.
“I was like, ‘Girl, what are you doing with this thing?’ This has to be funny!” Peabody told TechCrunch. But it wasn’t just a prop — her friend was involved One month offlinea community challenge in which a small group of people exchange their smartphones for mobile phones.
Peabody couldn’t think of giving up her smartphone, but her friend inspired her. A year later, her life seems different. She left her career as a licensed therapist to become its founding CMO Dumb Cothe mobile company developed by Month Offline. She is happier.
“I did Month Offline and I was like, ‘Wow, why am I suddenly not stressed?’ Do I feel good?” she said. “I didn’t even know I needed that and spending so much time on my screen after work made me feel so crappy.”
Dumb Co sells flip phones that sync with your smartphone, rather than replacing it, creating a happy medium between the infinite connectivity of the iPhone and the unrealistic limitations of an early 2000s relic. Funded by friends and family, the company is run by a small team in their 20s and early 30s. Like their peers, they’re not satisfied with the fast pace of the connected, without frictions of life. They grew up with iPads and Instagram but now crave something simpler.
In the humble shell of a $20 TCL folding phoneDumb Co loads its own software so users can access apps like WhatsApp, Spotify, Apple Music and Uber. You can even access iMessage through a third-party app (shh, don’t tell Apple). By packing familiar conveniences like streaming music, maps and blue-bubble text into a mobile phone, Dumb Co is creating something for people who want to reduce their screen time and be more present, but struggle to fully disconnect in a world made for the smartphone.
“We’re trying to build something where you can leave your smartphone at home and literally just live your life and engage with other people,” Afreka Ebanks, Dumb Co’s director of communications, told TechCrunch. “And when you want to be on your smartphone and you get home, you can use it because the call forwarding and text forwarding can be turned off.”
I spent over a month testing the device — which Dumb Co calls the Dumb Phone — knowing that in case of an emergency, I always had my iPhone ready. I didn’t use the Dumb Phone that much at first, but as I carried it around to show my friends, I noticed that they weren’t confused by my cell phone — they were jealous of it.
“I’ve gotten into a lot of interesting conversations with people as I’m walking and someone sees me at a traffic light like, ‘What’s that thing you’ve got?’ said Ebanks, who flipped her cell phone. “I think it’s a great conversation starter, and I think it’s incredible to watch people — myself included — work through the awkwardness of interacting with others because I’m no longer distracted by looking down at my phone.”
Dumb Phone is clumsy at times. It’s slower than I’m used to and I end up spending more time typing T9 texts than if I was just using my iPhone (what I really want is a stupid Fellow with a QWERTY keyboard). Still, there’s something undeniably refreshing about knowing that if you want to open social media, take a photo you’ll never look at again, or check your email, you can’t.
When I spoke with Peabody towards the end of my month of dual iPhone/flip phone ownership, she asked if I had ever left the house with just my flip phone. I confessed that I had not. I explained that sometimes I need to check public transit schedules or catch up on Slack if I’m going to an appointment during the day.
“The truth is, when you say the word need, it gives almost the same meaning as ‘I need food or shelter,'” Peabody told me. “Yeah, sure, it’s really useful to know when the buses are coming, but if you don’t have that information, you turn to your neighbor and say, ‘Do you know when the next bus is coming?’
Peabody dared me to leave my iPhone at home. The day we spoke, I had already planned to report library event throughout the city. I tried to explain that I had never been to this library and wasn’t sure which subway stop to get off at. She told me to just write down directions before I left. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to record interviews at the event. He told me that Dumb Phone can record sound.
“I really, really want you to do that, because I know that’s something that’s best experienced,” Peabody said. “When I switched to a Dumb Phone last summer, I didn’t use my smartphone for seven weeks and went on a cross-country trip to New Mexico. I didn’t think I could do that, but I’m telling you, you can.”
I had run out of excuses. Peabody drove thousands of miles without a smartphone. How could I tell her that I needed my iPhone so I could triple check that Tasker-Morris is the correct train stop?
Smartphones and social media are not a one-sided evil. There’s real value in connecting with friends online, sending pictures of your dog to your grandma, and using Apple Pay when you forget your wallet. While researchers do not classify smartphone addiction as they would with a substance addiction, there are certainly parallels. Not everyone has an adversarial relationship with their phone, but for people like me, more screen time often makes me feel more anxious, uncertain, and less grounded. Peabody even compared her relationship with her phone to her Juul addiction in college.
“It was really, really hard, but I completely kicked that addiction and now when I see a vaping or something like that, I actually hate it — I’m like, ‘Oh, no, I don’t want that,'” she said. “When I turned off my smartphone for seven weeks, I thought about using it again and felt the same repulsion. I didn’t actually look at it or touch it.”
I was nervous about leaving my iPhone at home, but I trusted my knowledge of the transit system and managed to get across town without my iPhone (I’ll admit, I texted someone to be extra super confident that the library is outside the Tasker-Morris stop). When I had to send a text that was too long to type on T9, I sent a voice message. I felt more connected to the world around me and nothing went wrong.
I don’t see myself switching to Dumb Phone exclusively, but I do find it valuable as a tool to help me pay more attention to how and when I use my smartphone. The Dumb Phone comes with a black plush case, in which you should place your smartphone when you leave it at home. I can’t quit the iPhone cold turkey, but I threw the plush pouch in my bag on a trip to the beach, just in case. I used it for a few things like ordering food and checking train times. But while I was enjoying a day at the beach, I didn’t take out my phone. I had a book, a sandwich, two bottles of water, some sunscreen — what more could I need?
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