IMPORTANT: Some of these phones *will not* work outside of very urban areas due to coverage limitations.
I posted this comment over on Jean's Stack as well:
"Jean, an additional concern with basic phones that we encountered with the Gabb 4 and previous Gabb is that the signal coverage is NOT good at all outside of major urban areas. We got the previous Gabb model for my older son to be able to go on Scout campouts without me and still have a way to communicate, and to be able to track his location.
It almost never worked, and we're not talking places that are super-remote like the middle of Philmont Ranch in NM...We're talking campouts in a city parks or on the verge of smaller towns (like 5k-20k population towns.) We couldn't call or receive calls from him, couldn't text, and couldn't track his location.
If you want to have use with a kid traveling with anything like scouts or church groups, try to read a lot of reviews about coverage in rural areas.
Otherwise agree with the above points wholeheartedly."
Please somebody make a quality flip phone with a high quality camera and voice recognition for texting. This rugged format is by far the best for actual voice communication, positioning microphone and speaker appropriately, and making the answering and hanging up functions easily navigated in the dark rather than a mess of floating icons where it is hard to find the phone function.
There's an Orthodox Jewish organization called TAG that allows you to take any smartphone and add a filter for a small fee. If you work with them you can customize which apps to allow.
Yes! The Jewish community has been WAY out in front of designing safer devices for a long time. My friend, Eli Samuel, is the CEO of SafeTelecom, which creates "kosher" browser-free Android devices. I'm not an affiliate. Eli's just a great guy on mission.
Just an FYI to prevent parents from making a mistake that we did! My oldest has a Pinwheel phone. We switched from Gabb bc he is really into music and wanted Spotify. We had no idea that Spotify is filled with pornographic content (and after recently adding video content things are even worse). Just putting it out there in case any other parents assume Spotify was “just music” like we did! Workaround: Your kid can get Spotify Kids. The music selection is pretty terrible and definitely directed at young children. However, there is an option for them to use your adult Spotify account, make playlists, and then add the playlists to their Spotify Kids. You have to put in a password so you can monitor what they’re adding.
Great job finding that more protective workaround, Megan! I enjoy sharing a Spotify account with 3 of my teen and young adult children. I just have to be careful at my parent talks when I want to pull up music that I don't drop Alice in Chains on the crowd (I have a son who loves the 90s :)
Disclosure: I don't own a cellphone, a smartphone, or a flip-phone. Landline only.
However! Both of my kids have one (when they were in 10th grade. We have rules: 1) Parents can get on it any time we want (we don't). 2) Must be used in the living space of the house (no phone in the bedroom. 3) They are required to be off the phone a significant part of the day (we should have defined that!).
A phone is a device for voice calls. An advanced phone may also have SMS text support. A super-advanced phone may have a simple one-lens 1600px (small file size, cheap sharing) camera in it - that will cover all your needs.
Anything added on top of it is a rip-off. First, you don’t need 99% of it. Second, the user interface is deliberately designed to make access almost impossible or time-consuming: this thing literally eats away your lifetime. Third, you cannot control it and its settings. Unlike hackers.
On the one hand you have smartphone companies selling you toxically addictive products, on the other hand you have "good" companies selling dumb phones that have half the speed and a 10th of the features for twice the price, not a good look lmao.
Sunbeam F1 flip phones at $250 are still the most affordable and highly customizable (you can choose your version with the features you want), but are still incredibly expensive considering the technology.
I have to admit that the phrase “alcohol-related apps” made me do a Google search. I was simultaneously pleased and disappointed that these seem to be apps for reducing your alcohol consumption; I had imagined something spicier.
Why isn't Rule 1 that a successful upbringing include developing facility w/ a smartphone so that a kid becomes a socially and professionally viable adult? I'm not. Severe nerve disease has long disabled me: ruining what would have included continuing my highly successful, rewarding career and social life. Have my own family. Even with my agony from Shingles considerably diminished, I suffer a rarish severe autoimmune demyelinating neuropathy (CIDP). Results include impairments w/ dexterity, vision, transient loss of strengh that leave me unable to send/ access text; to read much; to navigate a smartphone. This excludes me from increasingly more activities, services, products, socializing, medical care. Even aside from the agony, I cannot be a functioning adult without smartphone/texting facility. When I was young, we heard that earlier technology like video games, portable music, was ruining teenagers. Much like smartphones are vilified now. There remains much controversy about smartphone impact, collection of data as quoted here, lack of proof about causation. Such as, teenagers who would have problems regardless may be prone to (over)use smartphones, video games excessively. Proof of association does not prove purported causation, nor which way it runs, nor whether there's an underlying phenomenon causing both of the associated phenomena focused on. It is scientifically unsound to take data documenting an association and then arbitrarily impose causation in line with the researchers' favored culprit. This requires additional proof. Or, oh so commonly, an unsound ideological decree. The same is true w/ many of my medical afflictions, associated phenomena. My autoimmune hypothyroidism might be associated with infertility, yet if I were proven to be infertile, the cause most likely would be a common culprit, not a lack of thyroid hormone, which usually can easily be treated. Any ban should be weighed with all the benefits I'd lose if I hit adulthood without smartphone facility. Including ability to quickly help w/ medical emergencies of family, friends.
Because being a socially and professionally viable adult depends on having the experiences and skills that a childhood spent OFFLINE develops. Adults need confidence, resilience, creative problem solving, people skills, physical health, academic skills like reading and writing without AI, etc. None of those things are built on technology. They are built offline, while interacting with the world in our bodies, not behind our avatars.
The tech skills required to function as an adult are not that complicated--and they'll be different by the time our kids reach adulthood anyway. I have chosen to protect my kids from the ills of smart phones and social media at the small "risk" that they may be a little clumsy with those things for like, five minutes, when they actually get their hands on them after their brains have developed a bit. So far, so good. My 18yo is a freshman at an Ivy League university. She does have an iPhone now. She's on Instagram (almost against her will, because the school assumes everyone is on it and therefore uses it as the primary communication tool). But she does not live on the damn thing, and she's not defined by how many followers she has or how people react to her on Instagram. She is, however, making some very interesting observations about how socially dysfunctional her peers are.
love this. I guess "basic" phones are an okay ramp onto tech....like weed is an okay drug. ha ha.
I am hoping I hold out until 18 for my son as well on a smart phone. He is 12 now and doesn't really ask for one b/c the allure kinda wore off. He sees how it affects his peers. I may have to re-evaluate at 16 if he starts driving, but it's not certain b/c texting and driving is a big issue. I drove all over w/o a maps app when I was 16. It made me pay attention and know my roads better.
There is this weird idea that not owning a smartphone will make you tech-illiterate for some reason. I know absolutely *nobody* who has ever learned anything tech-related on their smartphones.
You know how you learn to do tech? Just like when you learn other stuff: you sit down, you open a programming book, or a "How does a computer work" book and you buy the right tools, and the right tools are computers, not smartphones.
I've not owned a smartphone until I was 19 and I already knew how to program, because I bought a book on programming that I read entirely. And old computers where much, much better at teaching you "tech logic" than smartphones, in practically every dimension, and weren't half as addictive as smartphones are today.
I'm 41, and it seems that the Light Phone is ideal for me (I do use the Maps App quite often).
IMPORTANT: Some of these phones *will not* work outside of very urban areas due to coverage limitations.
I posted this comment over on Jean's Stack as well:
"Jean, an additional concern with basic phones that we encountered with the Gabb 4 and previous Gabb is that the signal coverage is NOT good at all outside of major urban areas. We got the previous Gabb model for my older son to be able to go on Scout campouts without me and still have a way to communicate, and to be able to track his location.
It almost never worked, and we're not talking places that are super-remote like the middle of Philmont Ranch in NM...We're talking campouts in a city parks or on the verge of smaller towns (like 5k-20k population towns.) We couldn't call or receive calls from him, couldn't text, and couldn't track his location.
If you want to have use with a kid traveling with anything like scouts or church groups, try to read a lot of reviews about coverage in rural areas.
Otherwise agree with the above points wholeheartedly."
Please somebody make a quality flip phone with a high quality camera and voice recognition for texting. This rugged format is by far the best for actual voice communication, positioning microphone and speaker appropriately, and making the answering and hanging up functions easily navigated in the dark rather than a mess of floating icons where it is hard to find the phone function.
There's an Orthodox Jewish organization called TAG that allows you to take any smartphone and add a filter for a small fee. If you work with them you can customize which apps to allow.
Yes! The Jewish community has been WAY out in front of designing safer devices for a long time. My friend, Eli Samuel, is the CEO of SafeTelecom, which creates "kosher" browser-free Android devices. I'm not an affiliate. Eli's just a great guy on mission.
Safe Telecom is great. There's also Koshercell.
Just an FYI to prevent parents from making a mistake that we did! My oldest has a Pinwheel phone. We switched from Gabb bc he is really into music and wanted Spotify. We had no idea that Spotify is filled with pornographic content (and after recently adding video content things are even worse). Just putting it out there in case any other parents assume Spotify was “just music” like we did! Workaround: Your kid can get Spotify Kids. The music selection is pretty terrible and definitely directed at young children. However, there is an option for them to use your adult Spotify account, make playlists, and then add the playlists to their Spotify Kids. You have to put in a password so you can monitor what they’re adding.
Great job finding that more protective workaround, Megan! I enjoy sharing a Spotify account with 3 of my teen and young adult children. I just have to be careful at my parent talks when I want to pull up music that I don't drop Alice in Chains on the crowd (I have a son who loves the 90s :)
I just published a book about going analog: https://davidzelenka.substack.com/p/analog-jesus
Disclosure: I don't own a cellphone, a smartphone, or a flip-phone. Landline only.
However! Both of my kids have one (when they were in 10th grade. We have rules: 1) Parents can get on it any time we want (we don't). 2) Must be used in the living space of the house (no phone in the bedroom. 3) They are required to be off the phone a significant part of the day (we should have defined that!).
Surprised to see no mention of the Wisephone.
I have a Light Phone III and find it pretty good, it's buggy and a bit unpredictable, but it does the job, and certainly no temptation to overuse it.
I agree Wisephone deserves a mention.
A phone is a device for voice calls. An advanced phone may also have SMS text support. A super-advanced phone may have a simple one-lens 1600px (small file size, cheap sharing) camera in it - that will cover all your needs.
Anything added on top of it is a rip-off. First, you don’t need 99% of it. Second, the user interface is deliberately designed to make access almost impossible or time-consuming: this thing literally eats away your lifetime. Third, you cannot control it and its settings. Unlike hackers.
I’m interested in the light phone for myself! Does anyone have a review on using it (replacing my smart phone)?
Thank you for the mention, Jean. For friends outside of the USA, here's our "living" (constantly being updated!) Global Guide to First Phone Options: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UYRhKPJOtoaMZedB7ELfi_OoAYO03OS2PpnEjTRjs9E/edit?usp=sharing
In that Google Doc is a spot to leave us feedback if you have a regional update, because it's tough to keep up with everything!
Has anyone tried setting up a "youth" iPhone using the iOS-native Assisted Access? Looks like this would also be a viable solution:
https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/welcome/ios
On the one hand you have smartphone companies selling you toxically addictive products, on the other hand you have "good" companies selling dumb phones that have half the speed and a 10th of the features for twice the price, not a good look lmao.
Sunbeam F1 flip phones at $250 are still the most affordable and highly customizable (you can choose your version with the features you want), but are still incredibly expensive considering the technology.
I have to admit that the phrase “alcohol-related apps” made me do a Google search. I was simultaneously pleased and disappointed that these seem to be apps for reducing your alcohol consumption; I had imagined something spicier.
The Daylight Computer is amazing for not only blue-light reduction, but all in all a fantastic device to reduce tech addiction: https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/daylight
Why isn't Rule 1 that a successful upbringing include developing facility w/ a smartphone so that a kid becomes a socially and professionally viable adult? I'm not. Severe nerve disease has long disabled me: ruining what would have included continuing my highly successful, rewarding career and social life. Have my own family. Even with my agony from Shingles considerably diminished, I suffer a rarish severe autoimmune demyelinating neuropathy (CIDP). Results include impairments w/ dexterity, vision, transient loss of strengh that leave me unable to send/ access text; to read much; to navigate a smartphone. This excludes me from increasingly more activities, services, products, socializing, medical care. Even aside from the agony, I cannot be a functioning adult without smartphone/texting facility. When I was young, we heard that earlier technology like video games, portable music, was ruining teenagers. Much like smartphones are vilified now. There remains much controversy about smartphone impact, collection of data as quoted here, lack of proof about causation. Such as, teenagers who would have problems regardless may be prone to (over)use smartphones, video games excessively. Proof of association does not prove purported causation, nor which way it runs, nor whether there's an underlying phenomenon causing both of the associated phenomena focused on. It is scientifically unsound to take data documenting an association and then arbitrarily impose causation in line with the researchers' favored culprit. This requires additional proof. Or, oh so commonly, an unsound ideological decree. The same is true w/ many of my medical afflictions, associated phenomena. My autoimmune hypothyroidism might be associated with infertility, yet if I were proven to be infertile, the cause most likely would be a common culprit, not a lack of thyroid hormone, which usually can easily be treated. Any ban should be weighed with all the benefits I'd lose if I hit adulthood without smartphone facility. Including ability to quickly help w/ medical emergencies of family, friends.
Because being a socially and professionally viable adult depends on having the experiences and skills that a childhood spent OFFLINE develops. Adults need confidence, resilience, creative problem solving, people skills, physical health, academic skills like reading and writing without AI, etc. None of those things are built on technology. They are built offline, while interacting with the world in our bodies, not behind our avatars.
The tech skills required to function as an adult are not that complicated--and they'll be different by the time our kids reach adulthood anyway. I have chosen to protect my kids from the ills of smart phones and social media at the small "risk" that they may be a little clumsy with those things for like, five minutes, when they actually get their hands on them after their brains have developed a bit. So far, so good. My 18yo is a freshman at an Ivy League university. She does have an iPhone now. She's on Instagram (almost against her will, because the school assumes everyone is on it and therefore uses it as the primary communication tool). But she does not live on the damn thing, and she's not defined by how many followers she has or how people react to her on Instagram. She is, however, making some very interesting observations about how socially dysfunctional her peers are.
love this. I guess "basic" phones are an okay ramp onto tech....like weed is an okay drug. ha ha.
I am hoping I hold out until 18 for my son as well on a smart phone. He is 12 now and doesn't really ask for one b/c the allure kinda wore off. He sees how it affects his peers. I may have to re-evaluate at 16 if he starts driving, but it's not certain b/c texting and driving is a big issue. I drove all over w/o a maps app when I was 16. It made me pay attention and know my roads better.
There is this weird idea that not owning a smartphone will make you tech-illiterate for some reason. I know absolutely *nobody* who has ever learned anything tech-related on their smartphones.
You know how you learn to do tech? Just like when you learn other stuff: you sit down, you open a programming book, or a "How does a computer work" book and you buy the right tools, and the right tools are computers, not smartphones.
I've not owned a smartphone until I was 19 and I already knew how to program, because I bought a book on programming that I read entirely. And old computers where much, much better at teaching you "tech logic" than smartphones, in practically every dimension, and weren't half as addictive as smartphones are today.