Some Gen Z kids are ditching smartphones to reconnect with the world

In a recent essay in the New Yorker called “There Is No A.I.,” Jaron Lanier opens by saying how much he dislikes the term AI and even though that ship has sailed, "we’re at the beginning of a new technological era — and the easiest way to mismanage a technology is to misunderstand it.”

Lanier is often critical of technology, or rather its misuse, but he is also an idealist who proposes solutions to problems that often involve a more considered, ethical approach. "Who Owns the Future?" suggests a more equitable compensation for creators, and "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" envisions a more humane approach to social interaction.

The SAG-AFTRA strikes were partly due to AI potentially making actors obsolete. The ability to replace Harrison Ford with an AI version of Indiana Jones in perpetuity keeps actors and voice-over artists up at night. Without a labor agreement in place, a lot of people could find themselves unemployed.

Pop culture politics

Deepfakes are of particular interest for their potential use as much as for their possible misuse. One meme-worthy X account called Trump History places the former president in historical moments reminiscent of Forrest Gump. The scenarios are hilarious and anachronistic: Trump touring with Tupac in the 1990s and sharing a jail cell with Martin Luther King Jr. But they also offer a commentary, however oblique, on politics and pop culture.

Regardless of politics, the aesthetic value of these posts is undeniable. Whoever runs the account knows the right prompts to ask Midjourney, but there’s a deeper level to this. Trump is both a low- and highbrow figure. Except for Ronald Reagan, who began his career as an actor, no other Republican president has been both a historical and a pop culture figure — and one that was both celebrated and lambasted.

According to Andy Warhol’s friend Bob Colacello:

“Andy was the pope of pop and Reagan was the first pop president. A movie star as president was a Warhol fantasy come true. It wasn’t that Andy was politically aligned with Ronald Reagan, but the idea of someone who came out of a Hollywood star system and was ‘created’ by Warner Brothers becoming president is very Warholian …”

Like Warhol, the Trump History X account rises to art for the questions it compels. What is celebrity? What is history? It even questions, playfully, the notion of playing politics. And with Trump’s recent mug shot now emblazoned on T-shirts for fundraising purposes, it’s also life-imitating art.

Warhol never tired of exploring the concept of branding, not just in his art but in life. His person-as-brand philosophy predated influencer culture by decades. Twitch streamers, podcasters, and YouTube influencers might see Warhol’s “fifteen minutes” quote as a goal. Gen Z views it as a warning.

A generation in revolt

Brownie Harris/Getty

Perhaps realizing this more than other generations, Gen Z is responsible for an increase in dumbphone purchases. My teenage daughter and her friends spend less time online for many reasons. They are quicker to recognize staged setups on TikTok and have no interest in propagating them.

They aren’t doomscrolling on Instagram but having dinner with each other on Discord. They no longer want to leave breadcrumbs of themselves all over social media or the data mining machine and want to avoid the language and thought police on social media sites. They are looking for real, genuine interactions without being in front of an audience of unknowns. It’s the 2023 equivalent to talking for hours on a landline.

A year removed from the worst of the pandemic, they spend more time together in person with their phones turned off. And perhaps this is only anecdotal, but she and her friends are musicians and artists. They are more interested in creating together offline with electric guitars, bass, and drums. If any software is involved, it’s Ableton Live or GarageBand.

A new economy is emerging in the form of mindfulness products designed to help you detox digitally. There is a purse with a Faraday pocket designed with the express purpose of assisting women to limit their screen time and prevent unwanted ads from tracking their every move and conversation. Just because tech overlords want us to live online at all times and insist we will enjoy it doesn’t mean we want to or ever will.

When I first got online in the late 1990s as a student, I was most interested in using the World Wide Web to create offline experiences. Chat rooms usually led to offline phone calls. I visited a pen-pal site to find people to write to in real life — one of whom I’ve been writing to for two decades now. We ended up meeting in person a few years ago. And as an advertising professional, I even met my wife through her website, which is the oldest site devoted to advertising still online today.

Even as AI seems to be an unstoppable force, we might just be witnessing the end of Moore’s law, not as it pertains to technology but to our interest in it. For every early adopter or evangelist of the new, scores of people might see its value but not its meaning.

Lanier closes his essay with a warning. If we romanticize an AI “that lives independently of the people who contribute to it — we risk using our new technologies in ways that make the world worse.” His plea is to “think of people. People are the answer to the problems of bits.”

Tempering our excitement about AI and not allowing the online world to control our behaviors might be the answer. AI is a tool like anything else. It can be used to our benefit and misused by bad actors. If the people of a younger generation are rejecting technology, we should ask ourselves why and what they want to get out of it. Instead of seeking innovation for innovation’s sake, we can find creations that connect and enhance our lives.

Dumbphones are a sign that there’s a yearning for an intelligence that is real and genuine. In a sense, by going backward, they are showing a way to go forward.