Caron Morse told me that her daughter, who is nine years old, had a clear response when she asked for a smartphone last year: “A hard ‘Hell no.'” Morse, a mental health professional in the public school system in Portland, Maine, was adamantly opposed to smartphones because she had observed how social media and excessive screen time could cause students to become anxious and have shorter attention spans. She did, however, want her kids to be somewhat independent, able to contact their grandparents, set up playdates, and make phone calls to friends. She needed a rest, too. She declared, “I was so tired of being the go-between in any correspondence.”
Morse did purchase a landline for her daughter on her tenth birthday.
Morse needed to set the stage for that gift to yield all the advantages she desired. She told her neighbors about her plan and advised them to think about getting landlines as well because she thought it would be annoying if her daughters—she also has an 8-year-old—were to start constantly phoning the parents of their friends on their smartphones. Many jumped on board right away, thrilled about the chance to appease their own tech-obsessed children. And Morse continued to prod people over the course of the following few months. By posting pictures of her older daughter sitting on the floor and twirling the landline’s cord around her fingers, she played on their nostalgia. “Guys, this is adorable and working and important,” she wrote in her messages.
Peer pressure was successful. In their neighborhood in South Portland, roughly 15 to 20 families have now installed landlines. In their retro bubble, their kids can call their friends without bothering a parent to borrow their phone, and the parents can live in peace for the time being without worrying about the drawbacks of smartphones.
Desperate adults looking for smartphone alternatives for their children have contributed to the recent surge in interest in outdated technology. Parents of tweens are sold “dumb phones” at fairs. One parent posted on Reddit that they had gone “all ’90s,” complete with a landline, a Nintendo 64, and a desktop computer set up in the living room. After a Millennial mother shared on Instagram in March that she had purchased a home phone for her children, numerous parents commented that they had already done so or intended to do so shortly.
However, these are specific instances. Smartphones are so common because families are struggling with a “collective-action problem,” according to Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, which served as inspiration for Morse’s decision to buy a landline. The way their kids use smartphones, and social media in particular, worries a lot of parents. They are aware of the studies that link social media use to elevated rates of anxiety and depression in teenagers, particularly in adolescent girls. Even so, when every student at their school has a phone, parents may find it difficult to refuse their request. According to Haidt, “you are isolating your child if they are the only one who is kept away from phones or social media.” For this reason, he urges parents to unite in order to establish new standards: “You’re actually encouraging more in-person interaction if you do it in a group.”
That’s exactly what the parents began to notice when the South Portland landline pod formed. On a buffet table outside the family’s kitchen is the light pink phone Morse got her daughter, which has a curly cord. To prevent her daughters from taking the phone with them when they played or stealing it to their bedrooms for private chats, Morse wanted it in a “centralized” area of the house with a cord. “We hardly ever ask children to remain motionless and speak,” she said. “When my kids were on the phone, I didn’t want them to go play with slime. You should genuinely be concentrating on communication.”
Not every parent in her pod had a corded phone. However, all of the people I talked to said that the gadgets, whether or not they were corded, had improved their kids’ listening skills and empathy. The children initially needed some time to get used to it. Erin Masterson, whose kids go to Morse’s school, remembered a moment when her 10-year-old son called out to a friend on the phone, “ARE YOU HOME?!” Additionally, all of the kids have had to practice saying hello to callers, identifying themselves when they do so, and occasionally requesting to talk to someone else.
However, they became more at ease after a few months. Masterson observes that her sons “really tune in to what people are saying” because audio-only calls typically have fewer distractions—no faces to look at, no alluring filters, and no emoji. Another local parent, Mindy Hull, has observed a similar trend with her daughter, who is eight years old. Hull informed me of her daughter’s “mind-blowing” improvement in her ability to “engage people in conversation” since January. She is improving her ability to comprehend subtle verbal cues and is “practicing listening.”
The children have been planning their own playdates ever since the landline pod began, though they still need to get their parents’ approval. Additionally, they have been able to connect even in situations where an in-person hang is not feasible. Parents told me that their kids had called friends to check in on a friend after being absent from school, to ask questions about Dungeons & Dragons, or simply to talk on rainy days—all without their parents having to worry about what else the kids might be doing on the phone. Additionally, the landlines have allowed these parents to see aspects of their children’s social lives that they might not have otherwise had access to. Hull recently listened to her daughter, who uses their phone at least once a day, spend an hour and a half talking to a friend. She remarked, “They were telling stories, laughing, and giggling.” “It was unbelievable to me.”
Importantly, Jacqueline Nesi, a psychologist who focuses on the impact of social media and technology on teenagers, told me that parents in the landline pod are not simply prohibiting smartphones; they are providing their kids with an alternative that is far more likely to make them happy. Parents should just ask their kids why they want a smartphone, she suggests: “Do they want to be able to communicate with friends? Are they interested in playing a particular game? Consider the objectives and proceed accordingly.”
There are issues with the landline solution. According to Morse, it can be annoying when the home phone rings while they are watching a movie because a landline is more difficult to silence than a smartphone. The phone buzzes every now and then, and her daughters have learned to stop it by slamming it against the table, once hard. Furthermore, the majority of the parents I talked to admitted that they were merely attempting to delay the inevitable development of smartphones for as long as possible. (The only skeptic I talked to, Hull, believes her daughter may never require a smartphone while living with her.)
As their oldest children enter middle school and start to go out more independently, Morse and Masterson are currently thinking about limited-function smartwatches. In order for her son to plan rides and activities after school, Masterson wants to get him a phone that can only make and receive calls and texts. Morse is interested in purchasing a watch with GPS so she can monitor her daughter’s whereabouts.
The parents hope their kids will be more equipped to use a smartphone responsibly when the time comes, if at all. They will be older, more emotionally developed, and past the age at which experts believe a child’s brain is most susceptible to the addictive properties of smartphones. Additionally, their landline-honed communication skills may be useful. They may become more adept at calling people rather than texting or commenting on social media after years of practice, which could result in a closer bond with that individual. After all, calling a friend and having a conversation is the most fundamental—and, in my opinion, the best—feature of a smartphone.
Hey guys. These girls need your helps. Hurry up!!