In a world where more and more services and social interaction are based on mobile apps, a smartphone has become close to a necessity. Despite this, some people avoid smartphones and instead use a dumbphone – a traditional mobile phone or a reduced-feature designer phone.
New research from Aalto University has explored why some people choose not to use smartphones and what the consequences are. The study, which will appear in the April issue of the prestigious Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, is based on interviews with participants who chose to give up their smartphone or never had one – a decision that can make daily life more burdensome, limit choices, and sometimes even increase risks.
‘Custom dumbphones can be expensive, and some of the European participants had even ordered phones from Africa that weren’t available on the domestic market,’ says Associate Professor Janne Lindqvist, head of the computer science department.
The participants all came from countries and social surroundings where smartphones were available and the obvious choice. Their reasons for turning them down varied. Some wanted to get away from the distractions a smartphone unavoidably causes, while others wanted to avoid online surveillance. For parents of under-age children, the main reasons were a desire to keep their offspring away from social media and to avoid the temptation of a smartphone interrupting time with their kids.
For a few, there were religious principles behind the choice.
‘For adherents of Haredi Jewish practice, the form factor of the phone played an important role because it doesn’t appear too technically precious or novel, and the sometimes cumbersome functionality was seen as a way to prevent excessive use. Aside from necessary communication technologies such as voice calls, text, and sometimes GPS, dumbphones usually have little else, which is valued by users as a way to focus on what they feel really matters,’ explains Annabel Rothschild, a doctoral researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
About Aalto University
AALTO University is a multidisciplinary university in the fields of Science and Technology, Economics, Architecture, and Art and Design. It has 409 faculty members and a student body of 20,000, 70% of which are students in Science and Technology. AALTO University was founded in 2010 by merging three Finnish universities: The Helsinki School of Economics, The University of Art and Design Helsinki, and Helsinki University of Technology. The three schools are all leading institutions in their respective fields and in their own right. Aalto University is a multidisciplinary community where Science and Art meet Technology and Business. The university is committed to identifying and solving grand societal challenges and building an innovative future.
In a world where more and more services and social interaction are based on mobile apps, a smartphone has become close to a necessity. Despite this, some people avoid smartphones and instead use a dumbphone – a traditional mobile phone or a reduced-feature designer phone. New research from Aalto University has explored why some people […]
