Susan Kane“The flip phone brings back the joy of simpler, sweeter days,” the company says, revealing it will also include “digital wellbeing tips, calming sounds and… self-care reminders”.
As social media impacts on Gen Z become more prevalent, experts are hoping the new device – made by Nokia owner HMD and launching in Australia on September 5 for $199 – is the answer to their prayers.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, has been calling on parents to give their kids simple, old school “brick phones” to limit their access to social media.
“As soon as a child gets a smartphone, it will move to the centre of their lives, for the rest of their lives and it will block out some – or all – of everything else,” he warned at a recent Q&A in London for Foreign Press Association journalists, including George V Magazine.
Associated Press
Johanna Liander
Sophie Rosemont
Alexis Parker