The problem is not smartphones per se. They are very handy. They eliminate the need to carry a thick wallet full of physical ID cards, credit cards, membership/discount cards, etc. They help you if you are lost (who even gets lost anymore, with navigation and maps in your pocket). They let you access information and entertainment wherever you are.

The problem is the tracking and invasion of privacy, and that all traces back to ads.

Ads are at the root of all the problems with the modern internet and mobile tech.

> Anyway, I really regret that we didn't impose dumbphone protection laws back when we had a large enough bloc of seniors that didn't "upgrade" to a smartphone yet

I don't think the timeline ever really allowed for that. The time that smartphones started to be mandatory in any sense of that word feels to me to have been after every senior got one.

And even if implemented, I'm unsure how useful and enforced they'd be if every senior then jumped on the smartphone ship 5 years later.

I also have been using a flip phone ever since I got a cell phone. I had to upgrade it once because the old phone only supports up to 3G network or whatever, and my carrier just silently dropped all calls on that network a few years back, so I had to upgrade to one with 4G. My current phone is Alcatel 4051S.

But I also have an Android phone without any data plan attached, which I use only for recording GPS coordinates when I am taking pictures outdoors. I have mostly managed to avoid places that require scanning some code or installing some app.

I tried to remove the browser from my smartphone and it was impossible because of all these stupid QR scanning requirements everywhere.

> technically my flip phone, a Kyocera Dura, is an android device, but it can't install apps so I'll consider it suitably "dumb"

You can actually still sideload app stores (F-Droid, Aurora, etc.) on the Kyocera Dura. I bought mine specifically so I could still put my company-mandated pager app on it. Turns out I was able to get a physical pager instead, so I never had to go the sideloading route.

i bought my first smartphone this year. when traveling I was carrying the android tablet half of the time in my backpack, and even at home more and more you need apps for everything (e.g. lockersat club, gym entry, supermarket loyalty card, etc).

i just gave up. grapheneos + olauncher give me a minimal and open source enough experience to make it somewhat tolerable, but it makes me sad that as a society we've come to expect that you are carrying a computer with you at all times to exist.

I need it too for MFA, for instance one local university required it. On another university I can just use a yubikey. That is more convenient since it is small; the tablet is not so handy. I dislike the push towards forcing everyone to have a smartphone, or become a second class citizen in the country.