The Dumb Phone
A dumb phone is a phone that has only the necessary features for the basic functioning of a phone. It has no smart features such as the camera, music playback, video recording and playback, GPS, compass, gyroscope, Internet access, communication and LIDAR technology. Such phones are getting popular as a mean to reduce screen time, improve mental health and lead a meaningful offline life.
It would be inaccurate to say that smart phones induce the negatives effects that dump phones are trying to mitigate. It is not the tool or technology but their irresponsible use that induces the negatives. It would however be proper to hold organisations that manufacture these tools accountable for their product designs that exploit human heuristics for the worse of users.
All the smart features of a smartphone seem to have practical uses in everyday lives of most people. For them, I advocate the healthy use of smartphones rather than the use of dumb phones. But the healthy use of anything requires one to have self mastery; especially self-restraint, which most of the population lacks and thereby become slaves to the pleasure seeking part of our brain. For them, and for those to whom the drawbacks of a smartphone outweighs the benefits of the smartphone, use of guiding posts such as a dumb phone make sense.
Some try to extended the idea of dumb phones to dumb modes in smartphones. The irony is, if the user can responsibly turn on and turn off dumb mode in his smartphone, can he not responsibly use the smartphone itself? He should be able to. And if so, why is there a need for the dumb mode? Therefore, dumb phones are the only dumb phones out there. If you cannot forego the smart features of a smartphone, learning to use it responsibly is the only way.