When senior Tommy Chen wakes up in the morning, he does not reach for the glowing device tossed under the pillow the night before. He does not swipe the screen to check for missed texts. He does not dress with one eye on his jeans and another on Facebook updates. He has a flip phone.
There are many others like Chen who still have this strange window into the past. In our era of global connection, our location at the epicenter of technology, there are a select few who still use an unusual and outdated device.
Chen still has a flip phone. No, not the ultra fancy flip phones that are for fashion statements. This is a flip phone with no access to the internet, pay per play games, and a 3G network.
“The main reason I still have a flip phone is because my parents refuse to get me anything else,” Chen said. “It’s mostly because they think that having some other mobile device will distract me from studying. The reason I have a cellphone at all is just for communication. But I have to admit that it’s pretty durable and easy to use.”
The idea that cell phones should be used solely for communication is starting to become somewhat of an anomaly, given the fact that smartphones today function both as a portable encyclopedia and social accessory.
Evan Zhang, a junior, doesn’t have a cellphone at all.
“My parents don’t trust me with a phone,” Zhang said.
Zhang’s household is representative of several strict households in which parents are skeptical about allowing their children to use a smartphone. Many students believe that parents would like to have more control over their child’s usage of a cellular device, especially when they realize that the parents themselves were raised in a strict and protective environment.
Others hold onto older models for practical reasons. The Nokia 3310 is infamous for being virtually indestructible. Students, like Chen, find this aspect much more appealing, especially after the scandal with Apple’s bent iPhone 6+ . Sometimes, students believe that flip phones are just easier to use.
Finally, there are those who have made the switch from flip phones to smart phones.
Junior Anna Kang , used to have a Chocolate, a hybrid flip phone manufactured by LG, but has long switched to a smartphone.
“I had a flip phone before because it used to be cool,” Kang said. “But then, in high school, the phone become something more than just a phone, because all the features were useful.”
Kang also sees the smartphone as something other than a tool.
“People sometimes say that it’s a distraction, but I think that maybe the point is for it to be a distraction, say, a distraction from stress” she said. distraction from what? interesting but i wonder if she ever developed this thought
Students like Kang, straddling two different decades of technology, may showcase the gradual loss of old fashioned cell phones in favor of newer, more advanced models with additional features. Still, we can count on those few students using flip phones to give us a window into the past.
