If you find it hard to believe people actually want “dumb phones” and pagers, wait until you hear about landlines on the rise.
The landline is very limited by today’s standards. You have to be home to make or intercept a call, and can only move as far as its cord or range allows. They typically don’t text, take photos, or load TikTok.
It’s not very surprising that, as of the end of 2023, 76% of US adults lived in homes without one.
So who’s using them?
The CDC studied people who’d kept their landlines for 20+ years. Initially, it found that cord cutters were often younger and less averse to risk than those who kept their landlines. Today, however, parents are also giving landlines to their kids, per Fast Company.
Adults now mostly communicate using cell phones or social media, but are often reluctant to allow younger children to have their own phones or accounts.
- Landlines offer children more autonomy when connecting with friends and relatives, minus the dangers and distractions of modern tech.
- They also help kids learn phone etiquette and how to sit still and pay attention, as corded phones prevent wandering and there are no video distractions like when on Zoom or FaceTime.
But how…
… do you convince kids that a retro phone is cooler than something that can play “Candy Crush??
Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, told The Atlantic that it’s hard for parents to tell their kids they can’t have smartphones when all of their peers do, so he encourages adults to band together.
Caron Morse, a Maine mother, did just that, convincing several families in her neighborhood to get their kids landlines. It alleviated the pressure to to buy them smartphones — and the constant asking to borrow their parents’.
Meanwhile, Tin Can, a Seattle-based startup, saw a business opportunity. It offers cute, corded phones in a variety of colors for $75.
They use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), plug into routers or ethernet ports, and can call other Tin Cans for free. The company is working on getting them WiFi-enabled and adding the ability to call regular numbers and emergency services for $10/month.
Trends
