flip phone in 2025:
background plus pros and cons
I decided to get a flip phone in August of 2024 because even after deleting all of my social media, I couldn’t escape the negative impacts of my iPhone. Of course, this is not a super popular choice in 2024-25 (though I am happy to say I see the idea gaining traction lately!) so I thought that I’d make a comprehensive pros and cons list from my expereince.
Just to start, I’ll be clear about which phone I had versus which phone I got. I have been a reliable iPhone user for around six years now, I have an iPhone 14. When I made the choice to get a flip phone I knew I had lots of criteria ie. medical needs, musical needs, transit needs, etc. After much research in the online digital minimalism and dumbphone communities I decided the phone that was right for me was the CAT S22 Flip.
My lovely flip phone does run on 4G network with T-Mobile and offers access to the Google Play Store (running Android 11 apps). The phone is a brick with a tactical T9 keyboard and a small touchscreen. While I can technically download all kinds of things on this phone, I choose to keep downloads minimal (mostly because the phone is SO slow on any real apps). As of now, I have Messages, Phone, Camera, Clock, Spotify, Google Photos, Audible, a journalling app, and two city-specific transit apps. Now, let’s get into the pros and cons.
Obviously, we shall start with the CONS:
Perceived and genuine isolation from social networks ie. friends, acquaintances, news, pop culture, trends, all of it.
Way fewer people remember to message you, this is both a blessing and a curse.
Strangers love to stare at the flip phone. It’s a novelty, and also a brick which makes sense but it does make me self-conscious.
Everything is much less convenient. All apps take forever to open. This makes any non-essential apps not worthwhile to have around. The phone screen is tiny and the T9 keyboard drives me up a wall.
Much harder to make playlists. While Spotify works great for playing music through headphones, navigating the Spotify app for anything more complex is very time-consuming and inconvenient. I will typically access Spotify on my laptop if I have a new playlist idea.
Not a cog in the Apple machine. This means I can’t use my AirPods or my Apple Watch (to its fullest extent) with this phone. This is very frustrating.
Poor camera quality. I love taking iPhone photos, especially 0.5s. While the flip phone definitely delivers some vintage quality, it is not great for capturing anything important (or any videos).
Worse texting technology. The keyboard options are the classic T9 keyboard or an itty bitty touchscreen keyboard. You can’t react to messages to reply directly to a specific messages.
Requires more day-to-day planning. For instance, before I leave the house I must check my bank account to see if I have enough money, check the weather on my computer because the phone has no weather app, search and write down directions if I’m going somewhere new, and check my email.
You will be bored. Less notifications, less stuff to do.
It is very difficult not to fill newfound freetime doing the same activities on other screens. It’s not necessarily healthy to replace 5 hours of Tiktok/Instagram with 5 hours of YouTube or Netflix. It’s hard to be intentional about spending screen-free time especially when you are used to screentime being used to “wind down”.
You become insanely aware of how online the rest of the world is. And it gets really sad and annoying.
Lastly, you can no longer Google every passing thought. If it’s important, I write it down and search it up when I get home. This honestly decreases screentime wayyy more than you’d think.
Now, on a lighter note, here are the PROS:
No more phone addiction!!! This is the biggest improvement of all and it definitely leads to several more pros on the list. This entails living life in the moment and not clinging to any and every notification or interesting headline. My daily screentime on the flip phone is, on average, 45 minutes or less.
More peaceful inner mind/less overall anxiety. I didn’t realize how high strung and mentally overwhelmed I was until I got rid of it all. Who would’ve guessed that simplifying your daily life would make you more calm?!?! It is so nice when the whole world doesn’t have access to you 100% of the time.
Better sleep. By a lot. Easier time going to sleep, easier time staying asleep, and easier time waking up refreshed in the mornings.
More connected to real life and more observant of mundane details.
Less self-centered, this has to do with social media. Mentioned in more detail in my last post!
Not a cog in the Apple machine.
NO MORE SHORT FORM MEDIA, I make an effort to consume what I consume.
Better attention span. This is obviosuly related to the previous point.
I have bought significantly less stuff since making myself a digital minimalist. Of course I am still influenced on occaison by people in my real day-to-day life but I don’t get sucked into microtrends and the like.
Similarly, I am more appreciative of what I have. I’m starting to like my clothes again. I’m working to come up with new styling combos rather than buying new statement pieces all the time. I want less shit.
Free to experience myself very authentically since there is very little external influence. This is the first time this has happened since about age 13. I am proud of this. It feels good to have a stable sense of self that isn’t fluctuating every week.
I stopped thinking I look “bad” in photos. Since my camera quality is so shitty, all the photos are technically bad. But, without social media I : a) am not trying to impress anyone with these photos, b) I stopped comparing myself to other people’s photos, and c) the photos are genuinely more about capturing memories rather than appearances. The last one was something I always lied to myself about when using my iPhone.
More productive! I mean this in the full sense of the word. My school life became more motivated and so did all of my hobbies! I had much less distraction and much more time. I dedicated more time to reading, writing, gaming, sudoku, plant-keeping, doll-making, drawing, etc. More boredom = more time to reflect creatively about myself, my interests, and my priorities!
I’m way more patient than I’ve ever been. This was a BATTLE during the first week or so because, as I mentioned, 2024-25 is not built for flip phones. Everything takes extra consideration/planning and everything takes more time. I think this is extremely worthwhile though because I’ve honestly mellowed out as a person because of it.
I’m sure there are more things I could add to both the Pros and Cons side of this list but for now, this will suffice. To be completely transparent, I know that a lot of this could come off in an “I’m superior because I’m going against the grain” sort of way. That is not the intention, I sincerely promise. None of this is meant to be preachy or instructional in any way, these are just my actual feelings based on my time using the flip phone. I don’t think everyone needs to “convert” or anything. It’s certainly possible to practice mindful smartphone usage!! I am just bad at that particular balancing act. Nevertheless, I do think there is a good chance that even experimenting with a flip phone or other dumbphone for a while could elicit some pretty drastic changes in your life for better and worse.
Let me know if any of you have ever done a flip phone experimentation, want to try it, or are super opposed!! I love to get different perspectives on the whole thing. After all, I only know what works for me so far. What do you think is your version of healthy tech consumption?
