Gen Z is putting their smartphones down and trading them for flip phones this summer. <\/p>\n
Lauren from Alexandria, Virginia, and other Gen Zers across social media are calling it a “flip phone summer.” One user on the social media platform TikTok said the challenge is a way to “take back” her attention span and reflect on the role technology plays in her life. <\/p>\n
“Flip phone summer is a test of human will,” Lauren said. <\/p>\n
She decided to put her iPhone away in a drawer and bought a flip phone for about $100. She can do basic communication such as making calls and sending texts. She can also play an old-school game or two.<\/p>\n
While she can still get in contact with people, the idea is to have a phone that’s not constantly ringing. So far, Lauren says she’s feeling pretty good about the detox. <\/p>\n
“I’ve been listening to nature a lot. I’ve been connecting,” Lauren said. “I’ve been thinking my thoughts and that is a good thing because I didn’t have time to do that when I had social media.” <\/p>\n
Taking a break from social media has great benefits, doctors say. Dr. Christina Lee from Kaiser Permanente says any form of digital detox has proven health benefits. <\/p>\n
“Research has shown that can help with improving your sleep, that can improve your mood, that can reduce your anxiety,” Lee said. <\/p>\n
While the change isn’t a permanent switch, the older phones are helping connect people to the present — even if it’s for the summer. <\/p>\n
“I think by the end of this, I’m going to come out a different person with a different relationship with my phone,” Lauren said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gen Z is putting their smartphones down and trading them for flip phones this summer. Lauren from Alexandria,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[16533,97,165,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-17792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-alexandria","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-mobile","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}