I think these \u201cdigital detoxes\u201d are encouraging, and I\u2019ve been researching so-called dumb phones myself<\/a>. But none of these trends will really matter if we\u2019re continually forced into a world of apps for every element of daily life.<\/p>\n Late last month, Meta agreed to pay at least $12.1 billion to settle claims<\/a> that it deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to addict children, and announced it would be redesigning the platforms for younger users to include daily time limits, overnight lockouts, and restrictions on like counts and beauty filters.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a start, but we have to think bigger than just the algorithms that keep us glued to our phones. Because they\u2019re not the only forces that make quitting so hard. Increasingly, it\u2019s just basic access to services and companies and public institutions that are making a smartphone exit feel elusive.<\/p>\n You should not have to have an addictive device in your pocket at all times in order to do ordinary things. We should be pushing for a world where adults can meaningfully reduce their smartphone use, or quit it altogether if they want.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just about personal self-improvement. The status quo has already been long untenable for many people, especially the elderly, the disabled, the unhoused, and anyone who just can\u2019t afford a data plan.<\/p>\n Pushing for a non-smartphone option is about accessibility, affordability, and agency. It\u2019s about demanding the kind of freedom in a society we deserve to have. There should never be any essential service that requires phones as the only way in.<\/p>\n We can fix this, and some people are already showing how.<\/p>\n Even if it takes us another decade to unwind, it\u2019s important to remember these changes are less than ten years old.<\/p>\n Smartphone ownership exploded over the 2010s, rising from 35 percent of US adults in 2011 to 81 percent in 2019, according to Pew<\/a>. It has since climbed to roughly 9 in 10<\/a>.<\/p>\n In other words, smartphones stopped being a device many people had and started becoming a device every institution could assume you had. What happened next was part real improvements in convenience, part cost-cutting that pandemic-era policy made easier to justify, and part what sociologists call \u201cisomorphism\u201d \u2014 organizations converging on a practice not because it works best, but because everyone else has adopted it.<\/p>\n Isomorphism is one of my favorite concepts I learned in college, and you know it when you see it. For example, you\u2019re planning a conference, and somewhere along the way it became true that a \u201cgood\u201d conference has its own app, even though nobody wants to download an app to learn when lunch is on the schedule. Or it\u2019s the way every mission statement sounds like every other mission statement.<\/p>\n I\u2019d say the charitable reason we drifted toward handling so much by smartphone is that a lot of it genuinely is better, faster, and harder to lose. Tapping a turnstile with my phone, and never wondering whether I left my DC metro card at home, has made my life easier.<\/p>\n The less benign reasons are that digital systems let companies and governments cut labor and operating costs. Apps and QR codes replace cashiers, waitstaff, printed materials, and customer service reps, and shift new work onto us, the customer. The smartphone systems also generate a lot of personalized data which companies love to collect, and sometimes sell.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s control, which companies certainly like. Not all of it is sinister. (Think blocking tickets from being resold, or prices and menus being updated instantly.) But when sellers control the interface and know a lot about us, two people can open the same app at the same moment and see different prices. Economists call this price discrimination<\/a>, and it\u2019s much easier to pull off when there\u2019s no posted price we can compare against.<\/p>\n But just because inertia is leading us toward a universal smartphone society, that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s where we\u2019ll end up. We have options to push back.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s protect the non-smartphone option<\/p>\n Smartphones aren\u2019t going anywhere. But it\u2019s eminently reasonable to demand that whatever cost a company or government pays to keep a viable non-smartphone option is a cost worth paying.<\/p>\n While the \u201cmarch of digitization\u201d might feel inevitable, Clare Morell and Brad Littlejohn of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center remind us that Americans have a long history<\/a> of taking on technology in the name of humanity, from automobiles to firearms, and forcing some reasonable accommodations. There has been a push in recent years to preserve paper options<\/a> for people who struggle to apply for benefits online. Some cities also have laws requiring businesses to accept cash. New York state just passed a ban on \u201ccashless establishments<\/a>,\u201d which ensures people will still be able to dine out or shop without needing to go through a QR code or app.<\/p>\n Morell and Littlejohn point to other solutions, like the Americans with Disabilities Act, which they say could be read to require businesses to serve customers who don\u2019t use apps, or adding smartphone ownership to state anti-discrimination statutes.<\/p>\n Europeans have gotten further with this than we have. In 2023, the Council of Europe\u2019s Parliamentary Assembly urged member states to keep non-digital access<\/a> to public services available, and in early 2025, a coalition of anti-poverty, disability, and digital-rights groups delivered an open letter<\/a> asking the European Parliament to guarantee offline access to all essential services. Their argument is that the EU wants everything online by 2030 while more than 40 percent of Europeans still lack basic digital skills.<\/p>\n In the US, we\u2019re also learning that Big Tech isn\u2019t unstoppable. On top of the Meta settlement, school phone bans have spread to at least 40 states<\/a>, with school districts now considering policies to<\/a> limit laptop and tablet time, too.<\/p>\n Focusing on child safety first makes sense both morally and politically. Reformers have amassed a decent track record of getting companies and governments to redesign products around children\u2019s vulnerability, and such redesigns rarely stay confined to kids. In 1997, cigarette mascot Joe Camel<\/a> was dropped under federal pressure over marketing to kids, but the advertising restrictions that followed reshaped how cigarettes were ultimately sold to everyone. I\u2019d be surprised if Meta keeps a chronological feed and a nighttime cutoff walled off for teens alone.<\/p>\n And yet, we shouldn\u2019t rely solely on osmosis from kid reforms to fix our adult problems. For starters, reforms don\u2019t always trickle down. Congress passed COPPA in 1998 <\/a>to keep companies from harvesting kids\u2019 data online, and the rest of us still have no equivalent federal safeguard<\/a>.<\/p>\n Not every fix would require regulation. Afreka Ebanks, a spokesperson for Dumb.co<\/a>, which sells smartphone alternatives, told me she\u2019s optimistic that pressure on individual businesses can spark change, in part because marketing has shifted so heavily toward community and belonging in recent years. Companies that want to seem grounded in their neighborhoods, she argued, are more susceptible to locals asking for a non-phone option. She\u2019s been asking her own gym to bring back the key fobs it used to issue, so members can leave their phones at home while they exercise.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/mobile_phone_ownership.png\"\/)
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