Over the last couple of decades, smartphones have certainly become a huge part of our daily lives, but believe it or not, there are still people who use so-called dumb phones. In fact, here in the U.S., their popularity appears to be growing among certain Gen Z populations.
The short documentary, "Dumb Phone", is part of The Little Theatre's One Take: The Short List series.
The following is a lightly edited transcript of Beth Adams' interview with the film's director, Boris Sapozhnikov.
BA: What sparked your interest in dumb phones enough to want to make a short movie about it?
BS: I did this documentary as a capstone project for my master's degree at RIT, and I wanted to make a documentary that was similar to, like, like we've all seen, you know, National Geographic documentaries about, you know, like, the last tribe in the Amazon that's cut off from civilization. We want to see what their lives are like before they disappear completely. And that's sort of where I'm going at with the dumb phone thing, because it seems like soon, there'll come a time when it'll be pretty much impossible to not have a smartphone, like every part of society is so ingrained into it. So, I wanted to document the lives and the thoughts of people who still haven't made the switch.
BA: Yeah, it's kind of crazy, isn't it, when you describe it like that. It wasn't that long ago that these devices didn't even exist, and now, if you don't have one, you do seem like you're part of this primitive society. I was fascinated by the dumb phone users you featured in your film. They have a diverse range of professional backgrounds. There was a law clerk, high school science teacher, a bartender, an artist in their 20s, 30s and 40s, and they all seem to share a distaste for the smartphone. What was driving that for them, especially with most of their peers presumably embracing the technology?
BS: The reasons differed a little bit. But I think they would all sort of agree that they just don't like what smartphones have done to, you know, like real life, where just people interacting with each other, you know, being able to say hi to a stranger, or that sort of thing. Where they feel like having a smartphone, while it has all these benefits, it kind of takes away from our base, like human interaction, which is the way we've been interacting for thousands of years. Some of them feel like smartphones are just evil and nobody should have one. But I think a lot of the people in the documentary are saying, 'Okay, this is what's working for me. And I'm not saying that everybody should ditch this, but I can. I can get by without it, so I'm going to keep doing that.’ It’s not like they're trying to get everyone to quit smartphones.
BA: Do they, in very practical terms, have a hard time navigating work or just life in general without a smartphone?
BS: I think sometimes, obviously, it's harder to get around, to get to a place without, you know, GPS on your phone, or being able to, like, text or FaceTime somebody or whatever. But to these people, like none of them seem very bothered by it. To them, it's worth the tradeoff of being able to, you know, have their brain and have their serotonin levels at a more, you know, normal level. And I think that's kind of one of the things that's come out of this film, is we all know we use our smartphones too much, but a lot of people will say, like, 'Yeah, but I could never quit my smartphone. I need it for so many things. I could never live without it'. But then, if you watch this documentary and you see all these just regular people, like you said, from all walks of life, and they're getting by fine without it, so I think it was cool to just be able to show that, so that you can show other people, like, oh, okay, maybe, maybe I could do this too.
BA: I had sort of a wistful feeling watching this film. It made me feel like I should be able to do what these people are doing. I should have the guts to get rid of my smartphone and kind of go back to the way life was, because I personally think it was a lot better. As much as I use my smartphone, and like a lot of the advantages it has. I was curious...even though you said you weren't one of the first adopters of a smartphone, did you come away from making this film feeling differently about smartphones?
BS: I actually bought a dumb phone, and for a few years I would turn off my smartphone and switch to my dumb phone for like, a month at a time, just as sort of a cleanse. And it was really nice. But in the end, I did find that again, this is a thing that I think varies from person to person, I think with my lifestyle, with my job and everything, the convenience and the things that the smartphone gives me outweigh the brain rot that I get from it. I did end up going with a smartphone. But, yeah, I think every time I go back and edit a little piece of the film, or if I cut a trailer, or I watch it for a screening, it sort of reminds me to not use my smartphone a lot. And I think that this been the case for a lot of people that have seen it, that it's been sort of this film has been the push that they've needed to say, like, okay, at least I need to cut down my screen time. Maybe get an app that limits my screen time. Or some people have actually quit and become more of a digital minimalist, as they're called.
BA: I found what works for me is, I've deleted all my social media apps from my phone, and I sometimes switch it to gray mode. That makes things less interesting to look at.
BS: Yeah, definitely. There are all kinds of tools like you don't have to go fully just cold turkey, throw your phone out the window. There's one of the people I interviewed, he has a smartphone, but he only uses it for music, and he has like, WhatsApp on it to talk to his relatives overseas. But he either leaves it at home, or it's buried in the bottom of his backpack for emergencies. And then I think another point that was made in the film by one of the interviewees, is that we as humans have a tendency to blame things about ourselves on technology or on things that are outside of ourselves, but really it comes down to yourself, your own discipline, right? So, if you can discipline yourself not to overuse this technology, that's going to be way more beneficial than just throwing away one phone, getting another, getting a dumb phone, or whatever it may be.
"Dumb Phone" will be screened at The Little Theatre, 240 East Ave., on Thurs. Dec. 19 at 7:00 pm, and Sat. Dec. 21 at 3:00 pm.
