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Digitally Weary Users Switch to ‘dumb’ Phones !


Monroe

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Glad I have kept my flip phone from 2004 ... I can connect with USB to get on the internet all under the "voice minutes plan" ... it wasn't long after I got my phone that the companies started splitting Voice and Data. My internet is slow but it works for news, e-mail and Amazon orders and such ... just can't watch videos. I mostly use WiFi these days but every so often I have to get the old USB cable out and connect with the phone.

Digitally weary users switch to ‘dumb’ phones

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/01ba2970-9e70-11e5-8ce1-f6219b685d74.html

February 22, 2016

In January, British actor Eddie Redmayne made headlines around the world as he became the latest in a growing band of smartphone refuseniks.

“It was a reaction against being glued permanently to my iPhone during waking hours,” he explained, turning instead to an old-fashioned “dumb phone” handset that could only make and take calls.

He is not alone. There is a small but busy market for phones that are simple and cheap at a time when smartphones are becoming ever more complex and expensive.

Feature phones — handsets with some basic functions such as playing music and accessing the internet — are gradually being replaced by low cost smartphones, according to Francisco Jeronimo, research director for European mobile devices at IDC, the research group. But there is still a significant demand for older-style phones.

Strategy Analytics, a research group, estimates that 44m basic phones were sold in 2015, accounting for 2 per cent of the global market.

Some phonemakers, such as Sony and LG, have already turned their back on the market. But others like Microsoft and Samsung are still producing devices every year aimed at the feature market.

Many smartphone users bemoan having to buy devices that are easily broken, require daily recharging and which will be superseded by a new, better version within a year. Even basic smartphones offer computing power that not many people need.

Some users buy phones with limited or no internet connections in a conscious attempt to decouple from the modern digital world. Light Phone founder Joe Hollier falls into this camp. The 25-year-old former skater has developed a credit card-sized phone without a data connection and no extra functions other than to make calls. He describes a feeling of huge relief when the ability to check emails or status updates is removed.

Analysts say that there is a growing number of “second phoneys” who use an expensive smartphone or “phablet” during the day, but turn to cheaper, pocket-sized devices when they go out in the evening.

more at the link ...

Edited by monroe
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I agree now lets get back to using broadband internet instead of being capped..

Recently I was searching for 100% internet phone plans on ishbay. I searched and searched and eventually the ad monitor show me an advertisement for $100-$200 ( a year forever ) phone plan for CDMA phones. I have to switch but everybody in the household is locked into a stupid $150 a month plan. I mean I have my CDMA phone that is stays charged almost 24/7 without being plugged in, and can run Java games. There is also the android lolipop I am so tempted to upgrade this CDMA phone with.

Smart phones aka GPS phones basically are fully loaded PPC. You can hook one up to a display and use a wireless keyboard. I wish I could have told that actress I had drawn nude about that option but she already mentioned she brought a new computer just for tpying her resume.

Death to the GPS thank god. Seriously in China you have these Foxxcon and iphone constructors working non-stop. Some of these factories pay these people in iphones because they get the amount of money/exchange they get is probably less then $100 dollars in some cases ( Chinese exchange pay rate yaun/rub??? ). Causing these factories workers to jump of buildings and commit suicide. The result was the installation of a safety net, but that does not stop them from jumping off other ledges, or the net itself.

Personally looking at these phones and the amount of work and effort it takes to put these things together is insanity. Compared with an N64 game controller that was manufactured places in Asia. It is insanity for a person to put these little bastards together and still get that same payrate.

Edited by ROTS
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Then we just get a preprinted map, which I am sure there are tons of on the internet. Remember before GPS when you would hold the device in the X position and face north??? I am pretty sure if a gameboy game such as "kirby tilt n' tumble" could know which direction your facing, we could get away from GPS ( Smart ) phone devices entirely, having to use satellite data.

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  • 5 months later...

There is hope more will follow her example ...

Teenage Girl Ditches Smartphone For Flip Phone To Find Peace

August 22, 2016

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/08/22/stories-from-main-street-teenage-girl-ditches-smartphone-for-flip-phone-to-find-peace/

HASTINGS-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. (CBSNewYork)– Like most of her friends in Hastings-on-Hudson, 16-year-old Janie Litvin was married to her smartphone.

She grew weary of the constant “ding” notification as the backdrop to her life, WCBS 880’s Sean Adams reports. When her smartphone shattered, she decided to give it up.

“I decided to get a flip phone instead,” she said.

It’s a dinosaur of the cellular age and she loves it.

“If you’re a teenage girl, having an iPhone can be very stressful. You’ll turn away from your phone and you’ll come back five minutes later and you’ll have 200 messages and 10 Snapchats, and like 15 notifications on Facebook. And just– it’s a lot. I just thought it was too much,” she said.  

At first, it was a bit of an adjustment.

“I was so used to doing my pre-bed Instagram check and responding to Snapchats,” she said

But she started to see the irony of so-called social media.

“You’ll be in a room and people will be Snapchatting each other, they’ll be texting each other– from within the room,” she said.

The teen said she now observes more and is present in the moment.

“I’m not so much more tempted to look at my phone, I just look around me and you see a lot, you learn a lot,” she said.

Her mom Lisa Litvin, has come to understand why her daughter made the switch.

“I didn’t get it at first ’cause I wasn’t sure why she didn’t want a phone, or an iPhone, and I didn’t appreciate all the other stuff that came with an iPhone for a teenager that drove her nuts,” she said. “I really get it now.”

Janie Litvin’s friends were upset at first, but they’re adapting. She may be the last one to know what’s going on, but she said that’s okay.

“It’s great not to have to respond to everything immediately, and to not have to be constantly present with your phone worrying that you’re going to miss something,” she said.

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  • 4 months later...

There is a book that recently came out that talks about a millennial rebelling against a smartphone social media dominated world, it's called 'Clock Zero: I'm not my social feed' a free version can be downloaded here: http://www.obooko.com/obooko_thriller/bookpages3/thr0343-clock-zero-alsaadi.php this is a must read for anyone getting their life destroyed by smartphones and clickbait.

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Ow, comeon.

Excerpt (of the excerpt):

Quote


I’m standing ten feet behind her next to the dirt-smothered bullet-riddled olive black Cherokee. The smooth sphere of an M67 clinched firmly in my hand like a hot baseball in a catcher’s glove. I’m eyeing the brass, ring-shaped safety clip like a groom having cold feet under a chuppah, and all I can hear is my own frantic breathing, shallow and loud and unsynchronized.

... dirt-smothered AND bullet-riddled? AND olive black?

... like a hot baseball in a catcher's glove?

... like a groom having cold feet under a chuppah?

... frantic AND shallow AND loud AND unsynchronized?

In just three sentences I have enough adjectives and pointless comparisons to last me till Easter ...

jaclaz


 

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