Young people have used the "old man's machine", not because they are poor

Every year's Double 11 is an important time node for mobile phone brands to boost sales, but what many people didn't expect is that some mobile phone brands that focus on feature phones also have excellent sales performance.

Jingdong's 11.11 mobile phone racing list shows that iPhone, Xiaomi, and Huawei occupy the top three in the cumulative sales of all brands, while in the list of potential brands, mobile phone brands such as Philips, Tianyu, Newman, Gionee, and Nokia that retain feature phone business are among the top 10.

The popularity of smart phones has made feature phones once reduced to "old people's machines", however, the use of feature phones is not limited to the elderly, many young people are also using feature phones, and even some netizens ridiculed, "Now the old people who buy the old machines on the market are either doing their filial piety or abstinence."

Why are feature phones so popular among young people, and can they help them get rid of their mobile phone dependence and achieve "digital detoxification"?

(Visual China/Photo)

Young people are also using feature phones

In many people's intuitive impression, feature phones are the type of mobile phones from the 1990s to the early 2010s.

The form of the feature machine is basically the upper half of the display screen, the lower half of the mobile phone keyboard, or some are clamshell folding type, the upper cover is the display screen, the lower cover is the mobile phone keyboard.

With the upgrading of the software and hardware of feature phones, most of the feature phones on the market are "semi-intelligent", which can use 4G networks, scan, and payment functions...... However, feature phones generally still stay in the role of "functions" and "tools", for example, most feature phones cannot install mainstream social software such as Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Weibo.

Nowadays, it is the world of smartphones, but it does not mean that feature phones have completely withdrawn from the market. On the contrary, there have always been many people who use feature phones.

According to the data, the global shipment of smart phones in 2022 will be 1.37 billion units, and the global shipment of feature phones will also be as high as 420 million units. Among the 420 million feature phones, the Chinese brand Transsion (including sub-brands Tecno and iTel) accounted for 24.9% of shipments, Samsung had a 14.5% share, and Nokia had a 6.3% share.

The mainstream users of feature phones are the elderly, and the scope of use of feature phones is actually wider than imagined. For example, if some professions have confidentiality requirements, in order to prevent the leakage of secrets or electromagnetic wave signal interference, practitioners will be required to carry feature phones that prohibit photography, Internet access, USB transmission and reading memory cards......

Nowadays, more and more young people are using feature phones, not necessarily because young people are "poor", and their consumption has been downgraded to the point of buying feature phones - in fact, some low-end smartphones are also cheap. The main reason is to quit "mobile phone dependence", to be precise, "smartphone addiction".

(Visual China/Photo)

Growing addiction to mobile phones

Smartphones are becoming more and more functional, making them more and more fun.

The advantage is that when mobile phones can complete most of the things in life, it greatly facilitates our lives, and the disadvantage is that more and more fun mobile phones make many people more and more addicted to playing mobile phones, and there is a serious "mobile phone addiction".

According to QuestMobile's 2023 China Mobile Internet Semi-Annual Report, as of June 2023, users' stickiness to the Internet has continued to deepen, with the average daily usage time per capita reaching 7.2 hours, a year-on-year increase of 7.7%, and the average daily usage per capita reaching 116.3, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%.

"Mobile phone addiction" has become a problem of the times that cannot be ignored. The mainstream operating systems iOS and Android have coincidentally launched screen time management functions, which has made many people realize that they spend so much time playing with their mobile phones every day.

When people play with their mobile phones, it is not easy to feel that time is passing, sometimes subjectively they just feel that they have only played for a while, but as soon as the time of "a while" is added up every day, the total time in the end is shocking.

Needless to say, the negative impact of "mobile phone addiction" on individuals is no longer repeated, distracting attention, disrupting concentration, affecting investment in work or Xi, delaying personal self-growth, and so on.

"Mobile phone addiction" can also affect the individual's mood and psychology, for example, if we forget to bring our mobile phone out of the house, we will not be able to sit still, every day we subconsciously look for and look at our mobile phone, and if we don't do so, we will feel uncomfortable, and we will often receive "auditory hallucinations" from WeChat or text messages......

It is worth mentioning that some young people are addicted to "playing with mobile phones", and some people are unable to leave their mobile phones psychologically because of their work attributes.

For example, some migrant workers always have endless information on WeChat, Enterprise WeChat or DingTalk every day, have no real off-duty time, or need to turn on the phone 24 hours a day for work reasons to avoid missing important information...... Although they don't like to be disturbed by mobile phones, as long as the mobile phone is gone, they seem to have lost the ability to "live a normal life".

In short, "mobile phone addiction" is making more and more young people unhappy - "digital detox" has become a rising subcultural trend.

On Douban, groups such as "Digital Minimalist", "Stay Away from Screens" and "Anti-Technology Dependency Group" have attracted a large number of users to join, and young people have shared their experiences of quitting smartphones or clocking in every day. The use of feature phones has become an important means for young people to fight against "mobile phone addiction" and carry out "digital detoxification".

The feature unit can be used as a standby machine

Young people use a variety of withdrawal methods in order to successfully "detox" by digital.

Some work on software settings, such as uninstalling the software, using the lock software, and turning off the software's non-essential functions, while others use "physical withdrawal", such as locking the phone in a cabinet or box and forcing yourself not to open it.

It's just that the effect is not very optimistic. The Paper counted 159 check-in posts in the "anti-technology dependency" and "digital minimalist" groups, and found that uninstalling addictive software was the most popular withdrawal method and had the highest percentage of failures, with 30 out of 32 people failing.

"It's easy to break the mountain, but it's hard to break the heart", uninstalling software is completely dependent on self-control, but mobile phone addicts often don't have so much self-control, and they can easily re-download it, and the failure rate is naturally high.

Keep your distance from your mobile phone - such as locking your phone in a cabinet and other physical withdrawal methods, the success rate will be higher, but there are many people who fail to quit, after all, the mobile phone can only be locked for a while, and you basically take it with you when you go to work or go out. After a long time, the phone has not been stopped, but I have been annoyed by the cumbersome process of locking the phone.

In contrast, a strong man waved away his smartphone like a broken wrist and re-used a feature phone, which is a more powerful way to quit.

At present, many feature phones on the market are in the state of "semi-smart phones", which can be used by WeChat and Alipay, but many social media cannot be used, let alone playing mobile games. Except for the basic functions, the feature phone is like a brick at this time, and there is nothing to play if the user really wants to play.

If it weren't for the fact that mobile phone addiction has reached the point of pathology, this withdrawal method of replacing smartphones with feature phones may not be worth advocating.

After all, technology is constantly advancing, and young people have to "keep up with the times" after all, and many social media are also platforms for young people to understand the outside world, express themselves, and communicate with others.

Therefore, if mobile phone addiction has affected personal life and self-growth, if the economic conditions allow, it is better to buy a feature phone as a spare phone, and in some time periods, only allow yourself to use the feature phone, such as putting the smartphone in the unit during work hours, and only use the feature phone at home, so as to spend more time with your family, for learning Xi or resting.

"Digital detox" is not about rejecting mobile phones, but about not indulging in playing with them continuously, not about not using smartphones, but not being enslaved by them. As a "standby machine" function machine, or hidden a lot of market space.

Li Yu

Editor-in-charge: Liu Yunshan