MANY PEOPLE, myself therein, being struck by dumbphone (*) revival intend to find suitable explanations by which its real implications may be anticipated. Also referred to as feature phone, its remarkable return to commercial charts has been persistently increasing in figures for three years now as social surveys and consumer preference analysis haven’t ceased to report.
(*) Though somewhat unwillingly we shall follow the fashion of so calling the cellphone models previous to smartphone. Those hitherto forlorn handsets just tipically featured the ability of sending / receiving calls and SMS text messages. Devoided of internet access, data was displayed on a mini non-touch screen and dealed with by press-button based inputs.
(Nevertheless they were good enough for their time and deserving of acknowledgement for good service).
Dumbphone revival. That’s at least the news actually spread by most reliable sources dealing with mobile phone trends. Predictions made in 2019, before the appearance of incipient signs, were fully accomplished during the following years: a continuous dumbphone sales rise has been since then sweeping the global market to the detriment of smartphone choice.
On that last observation probably lies substantial food for thought that might lead to the heart of the matter. We are obviously not before a discussion that may be taken to the field of technological comparison for, as it appears commonsensical, no one would there support the dumbphone option.
They would just remind us of the many useful daily tasks their smartphone provides. Essential calendar project planning or GPS localization, for instance. After all, computers are nowadays an indispensable part of our lives and smartphone devices are just a special kind of them.
The clues to the puzzling event should be searched for in contexts different from that of the technological advances.
Although a persisting current of sales in a way opposite to that indicated by technological progress is probably as odd an event as a temporary one, causes to it might fall not so far from common sense considerations.
Answers given to questions posed by markets apparently moving in a backwards direction should not lead to false scenarios. Customers can’t be possibly denying the enhancement to personal and collective efficiency smartphone handsets deliver by providing useful apps aplicable to multiple daily tasks.
Audiobooks are out of the question on a dumbphone device. So are restaurant reservations, weather forecasts, e-books, step trackers, podcasts, etc.
Not less true, however, remains the fact that each day more people blames their smartphone for their being continously engaged to relatively unimportant issues happening just there, on its slick screen.
They feel helplessly wasting energies and time while being unable to disconnect from their jobs, social networks, gaming sessions, news and an endless list of digital entertainment. The fact of disposing of a handy pocket computer is reducing significantly, so they assure, both their productivity and the hours of their day.
The new generation reach the smartphone user status always earlier than the previous one. And they do so at such precocious a life stage that educators and parents feel about gathering forces in order to atack the problem at home and school as well. No one’s surprised when nowadays neither alarm nor criticism involved don’t stop filling the press columns.
As a matter of fact, as it usually happens in cases likewise, reactions are often delayed and meanwhile no one really seems to know how to handle the related derivations and difficulties.
Nevertheless, both dumbphone and smartphone are just digital tools or gadgets designed to perform for us specifical services. Their goal is to make our life easier and more productive by saving us time and effort. If results are disappointing some foreign interferences are obviosly taking place there. Not only necessarily due to owner’s misuse, obviously, but owing to a complex range of internal / external factors.
Notwithstanding those interferences, just as plainly as common sense suggests, every consumer’s choice should be based on their needs, never on account of the multiplicity of features offered by the product.
