new York
CNN
—
First it was disposable cameras. Then it was low-rise jeans. Now Gen-Z’s latest “vintage” obsession is the clamshell — that phone from the mid-1990s that’s suddenly become so popular with millennials.
Today, these smaller, lightweight devices — some can be found for as little as $20 at major retailers like Walmart and Amazon — are popping up in TikTok videos of young people unpacking them, bewitching their cases just like previous generations, and tutorials on how to Subject films spin a carefree, blurry aesthetic through the inferior camera.
But most importantly, they love the ability to switch off – or as much as that is at all possible in 2023.
“I’m team flip phone revolution,” singer Camila Cabello tweeted Thursday, posing with a TCL flip phone, Vintage. “Maybe I can write the theme song.”
Actress Dove Cameron, who rose to fame on the Disney Channel show Liv and Maddie, said in a November interview that she’s switched to a clamshell phone. Spending too much time on her phone and looking at social media “is really bad for me,” she said.
“I found a little Matrix clamshell phone from the ’90s,” Cameron said. “I got a separate number for it, it’s really cheap and I probably really suck at it.”
Cameron said she unplugged and switched because she found her social media presence “misleading”. The feeling is widespread under Gen Zers – and his The effects have been linked to mental health crisis in teenagers.
As smartphones and social media became more ubiquitous around 2012, rates of depression among teenagers also increased, psychologists say. Between 2004 and 2019, the rate of depression in teens nearly doubled, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Sammy Palazzolo, 18, a freshman at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has a new routine with her cell phone when she’s out with friends at night.
She and her friends are listening to the latest music on their smartphones while getting ready. Then, when it’s time to go, leave these smart devices behind.
Instead, they only contact each other through their clamshell phones throughout the night, taking photos on them despite the now primitive camera. Your devices are a great conversation starter.
“At parties, people say, ‘Oh my god, is that a clamshell phone?'” Palazzolo said. “We’re going to be talking to some new people, meeting some people, and everyone is loving it.”
Reagan Boeder, 18, said she’s trying to get her sisters involved in the trend.
“I think people are going to go out with flip phones more and more just because it’s so fun and nostalgic and frankly a vibe.” said Boeder.
Before she switched phones, Palazzolo found that her evenings in her college town often ended in tears stemming from an unwelcome event Post on social media or text from an ex, “The main cause was our phones.”
When vintage technology made a comeback, they came up with an unconventional solution.
In December, she went to her local Walmart with three friends. The 18-year-old was unfamiliar with the process, from choosing the model to buy to finding the right phone plan. After four hours, Palazzolo bought the AT&T Flex for $49.99; Her friends got cheaper models for $19.99 through Tracphone.
Palazzolo’s TikTok, which encourages others to buy flip phones, has more than 14 million views and over 3 million likes, with hashtags like #BRINGBACKFLIPPHONES and #y2kaesthetic.
“It eliminates all the bad things about college and brings all the good things to one phone,” Palazzolo said. “Which means connecting with people and taking photos and videos. The photos and videos are fire.”
HMD Global, which is Nokia’s exclusive licensee, said Gen Z is an unusual demographic for the company. Both companies are based in Finland.
“It’s a generation that didn’t have Nokia as their first phone and probably discovered our brand through social media,” said Jackie Kates, director of marketing at HMD Global.
Gen Z is used to the many functions that smartphones offer from their numerous apps such as Instagram, Find My Friends or GPS. But there are also security concerns in relying on these simple devices. Without the Find My tracking feature, Palozzolo said, she and her friends stick close and use a buddy system to track who’s where.
Palozzolo wanted to use a clamshell phone during a high school summer because she thought it would be “cool.” “My parents said absolutely no, we need to be able to track you,” she said.
Palazzolo is no stranger to “vintage” technology — she’s been bringing a digital camera to parties since sophomore year.
And while Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro has a 48-megapixel camera, it misses the delayed gratification of waiting for images to be developed or downloaded to a computer. Popular apps like Hisptamatic and Dazz Cam reproduce digital and film camera photos and have thousands of downloads.
The disposable camera market is expected to grow by US$1.23 billion by 2030. Celebrities like TikTokker Charlie D’Amelio and model Emily Ratajkowski have jumped on the digital camera trend of the 2000s era.
“I love the photos on the clamshell phones because they’re grainy and blurry,” Palazzolo said. “And I think that captures the atmosphere of going out in college perfectly.”
Perhaps one reason Gen Z is pining for the 1990s and 2000s is the privacy and lack of carefully curated imagery. It’s social media at its most casual—photo dumps with candid images and BeReal, a popular app that once a day prompts its users to take real-time selfies and post them within two minutes.
“I never want to be the person who’s just on the phone all the time,” Boeder said. “Getting a flip phone kinda made that possible.”
Back then, “people were more involved with each other than our phones and social media were,” Boeder said. “It seemed like people were just talking to each other more and everything was more real and spontaneous.”
HMD Global said a lot of people like the idea of being less available.
“We attribute this shift to many smartphone users realizing that they are spending too much time on their devices and have a strong desire to disconnect and be ‘fully present’ to improve their quality of social connections.” said Kates.
And yes, new Nokia flip phones are still available – the Nokia 2760 Flip is sold at Walmart by prepaid brands like Verizon for $19.99. The 2780 is available from Amazon and Best Buy for $89.99.
In 2022, International Data Corporation said that the foldable phone market was expected to reach $29 billion in 2025 — a compound annual growth of 70%. Samsung has shipped over 10 million units since the release of the first generation model, which accounted for more than 88% of the global foldable smartphone market in 2022.
These aren’t your $30 flip phones at Walmart. An unlocked Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 starts at $1,799.99 and the Galaxy Z Flip4 starts at $999.99.
“Samsung has decided to bet on its foldable smartphones; a decision it has made is well ahead of its competitors in the number and sales of foldable smartphones,” said Zaker Li, senior analyst on Omdia’s mobile devices team.
Omdia attributed the high price of Samsung foldable phones to lackluster sales for its earlier models, but sales ‘soared quickly’ to 9 million units in 2021, up 309% year-on-year.
Apple needn’t worry, however — Omdia expects foldable phones to account for 3.6% of the overall smartphone market by 2026. For comparison: Apple’s market share is more than half of the entire smartphone market.
