While smartphones are very much part and parcel of our regular life, in recent days we’ve been seeing some shifting of people’s habits. The gradual interest in brick phones is surprisingly increasing, and in 2019, the overall sales of brick phones raised around 5%. A survey shows that Gen Z has an average weekly screen time of 29 hours & 29 minutes a week, with 48 percent saying social media makes them feel depressed.

Particularly during the pandemic, many avoided using their smartphone habits to get rid of regular negative news and continuous distractions. TikTok’s Burner phone challenge also got viral and generated millions of views where people attempted to live their life without smartphones. Journalist Hussein Kesvani estimated to see more people leaving the public platforms entirely and sticking instead to small communities and maintaining small friendship groups on their private platforms. It allows people to enjoy their extra time to spend with family and friends and to get engaged with recreational-type activities which can boost up people’s mental health.

However, it’s not completely easy to avoid smartphones in the 21st century without having constant access to Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp, etc. Rather than completely avoiding it, many feel it safe to use the smartphone occasionally and keeping the brick one as the main option. Overall it appears that switching to brick phones is less hassle and the limited functions can indulge their life purposefully. It also enables them to perform basic goal-oriented tasks on the phone such as making phone calls and writing simple messages.

Overall it appears that people can reduce a lot more hassle for the sake of their sound mental well-being and to live an eventful real life.