The kind of mobile handset your parents carried in 2005 is suddenly hot again. Retail tracking data reviewed by The Washington Times show that U.S. sales of so-called “dumbphones” among 18- to 24-year-olds have jumped 148 percent since late 2021. Now it’s increasing even more. Market researchers and carriers on both sides of the Atlantic confirm the spike, describing a cohort that is not chasing Y2K nostalgia so much as waging a quiet rebellion against the business model that turns every swipe and ping into ad revenue.
“Smartphones have the same chemical reaction in the brain as drugs and alcohol,” neuroscientist Prof. Melissa DiMartino told the Times, explaining why a growing number of her Gen Z patients are deliberately downgrading to flip phones to curb compulsive scrolling. On TikTok, the hashtag #bringbackflipphones has topped 450 million views in six months, and forums from Reddit to Discord are full of tips on how to live “B.C.” (“before Candy Crush”). The phenomenon is often framed as a “dopamine diet.”
The movement is international. In December, Reuters Breakingviews reported a 12 percent rise in U.K. feature-phone shipments to 450,000 units last year, with parallel double-digit gains in France, Germany, and South Korea. Counterpoint Research now forecasts global dumbphone shipments will edge toward 80 million in 2025 — still small next to 1.2 billion smartphones, but enough to make component suppliers reopen once-idle production lines.
Retailers built for the off-grid crowd are scaling quickly. Los Angeles–based startup DumbWireless booked roughly US$ $68,000 in handset revenue last month — up from just $5,000 a year earlier. Co-founder Daisy Krigbaum says parents now account for one-quarter of customer enquiries, hunting for a “first phone” that won’t derail homework or recess. Brooklyn’s Light Phone, famous for being a minimalist device that can neither run Instagram nor push notifications, plans to double production capacity this quarter.
Observers note that the shift has less to do with vintage chic than with economics and autonomy. A survey by advocacy group TFP found 54 percent of respondents aged 18-27 agreed that ditching smartphones was an act of “taking back control of my attention.” Gen Z is now voting with its wallets—and with devices that cannot run intrusive ad tech.
The boycott is also bolstered by policy. Since 2022, at least 14 countries, including France, Italy, and most recently Australia’s New South Wales, have introduced limits on smartphone use in schools, according to the London School of Economics. Many U.S. districts follow similar guidelines, steering families toward basic talk-and-text devices during the school day. Major carriers say September, once dominated by new iPhone queues, now rivals December as the busiest month for feature-phone activations.
Culture brands have pounced. Heineken teamed with HMD Global to unveil the “Boring Phone” at Milan Design Week; the lime-green flip sold out in minutes. As one 29-year-old buyer put it, she “hated being available to everyone” and welcomed the forced friction of T9 texting. Meanwhile, Gen Z influencers who once livestreamed every latte now post photo-dump montages that spotlight the dumbphone itself as a status symbol.
Big Tech is watching but not yet blinking. Apple’s iPhone shipments still exceed 200 million units annually, and Samsung’s Galaxy line adds another 250 million. Privately, however, Samsung engineers acknowledge that “digital minimalism” is now a formal R&D scenario, according to a person familiar with the roadmap. HMD Global has already moved, announcing an e-SIM-ready Nokia flip aimed at U.S. prepaid users who want the convenience of QR-code activation without the rabbit hole of an app store.
The advertising ecosystem stands to lose eyeballs first. Platform giants logged roughly $660 billion in global digital-ad revenue last year, according to eMarketer. Even a small dent in daily screen time can translate into billions in lost impressions. Yet marketers may have little leverage.
Health researchers are watching for hard data. Early findings at the University of Michigan’s Screen Time Lab suggest that students who switched to basic phones for four weeks reported significant reductions in nightly scrolling and reported lower self-rated anxiety. A peer-reviewed write-up is due later this year. Still, skeptics argue that dumbphones merely push cravings onto other screens. Roku says U.S. streaming hours among 18- to 29-year-olds rose 9 percent in Q1, hinting at a displacement effect.
For many adopters, the trade-off is worth it. When Buxton boarding school issued Light Phones to every student, senior Bea Sas said, “I think people are a lot more social.” Her sense of relief matches a Pew Research trend: the share of young adults who feel “dependent” on smartphones has fallen eight points since 2018.
Whether the revolt will dent Silicon Valley’s bottom lines is an open question. But cultural momentum is clearly shifting. Unlike previous retro crazes driven by older consumers, this one is led by digital natives who have never known life without infinite scroll. Their statement is as blunt as the handsets they carry: the most radical technology choice in 2025 might be pressing a physical End Call button and sliding the phone — hinges creaking — back into a pocket.
As Herbert Simon warned in 1971, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” Half a century later, Gen Z is proving the Nobel laureate right — one monotone ringtone at a time.
