Gen Z is flipping the script this season.
Hanging up on the addictive name of the smartphone, tweens, teenagers and 20-somethings are, as an alternative, going retro, ditching their digital gadgets for 2000s-era flip telephones.
“Flip phone summer,” declared Makayla Aubrey, posing together with her throwback artifact in a trending clip. “Life will be so simple.”
It’s an ease that comes with much less time on screens.
The Zs, kids beneath age 27, have not too long ago begun rehabbing their high-tech fixations with the assistance of low-tech instruments.
It’s a generational effort in the direction of disconnecting from the World Vast Internet, and reconnecting with the actual world in oldfangled methods.
Forgoing iPhone photoshoots, Gen Zers are virally all in favor of snapping pics on classic digital and disposable cameras, insisting that “a camera from 2007 gives off a certain vibe that something like an iPhone can’t produce.”
The whippersnappers are, too, preferring cassette tapes and vinyl data over music streaming platforms, and Walkman headphones over ultramodern Bluetooth earbuds.
Their newfound fascination with Y2K-style horns, nonetheless, began with the BlackBerry.
Nicknaming the as soon as in-demand gadgets “dumbphones,” owing to their distinctive keyboards and restricted capabilities, Zoomers have been zooming to websites like Fb Market and eBay, buying BlackBerrys to supplant their extra subtle cellulars.
Now, as flip telephones rise from the ashes as the new months’ hottest commodity, Gen Zs are crediting the classic mobiles with restoring their grip on actuality.
“It’s an unplugged summer,” Meni, who admittedly spent 13 hours looking at screens every day, introduced within the caption of a TikTok clip.
“I swear that my brain is just mush,” she mentioned, blaming her smartphone, its alluring apps and fixed notifications, for the regression.
“I no longer live my life,” continued the brunette. “I just watch other people live theirs, and feel s—ty about mine.”
Meni went on to laud her early aughts flip cellphone, together with an old-timey e-book reader, praising the resurrected devices for saving her from certain destruction.
“I love the freedom.”
