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I really should not be writing here, but this is something that has been bothering me for as long as I can remember, and I have never gotten a straight answer from my rabbeim and parents. So, I guess I’m writing here and hoping someone can answer me.
We all know about the great dangers of technology. Many call it the nisayon of the dor. Having been in yeshiva my whole life and coming from a very extreme yeshivish home, this has obviously been something spoken about constantly. Both my parents have flip phones, and a computer was never allowed in the house. We were even very strict about DVDs.
Here is my real problem: The flip phones of today are getting more and more advanced, with the capability to do a lot more than they used to. My parents would allow me to use a flip phone with some apps, but to get a rectangle-shaped phone with those same apps and a strong internet block is forbidden. To take it even further, when my sister needed WhatsApp for her job, getting a smartphone was not an option for my parents, but they did settle for a CAT phone, which, unlike the other flip phones, is a real smartphone just in a durable flip format.
Now, when I want to use a rectangle-shaped phone with specific apps that would be okay on the flip phone and with a strong block, I am being told “no.” At this point, they don’t even have the excuse that we don’t let smartphones in the house because we did allow the CAT phone.
The million-dollar question is: Why does the flip format make it kosher? If the content I am using would be okay on a flip phone, why is the rectangle-shaped phone not allowed? I have never gotten a straight answer to this! All I get is people yelling at me, or my father telling me, “I can’t explain it now. Smartphones are bad…” You might say it has to do with wasting time, but that doesn’t really answer what is wrong with it.
To make it even worse, part of what my father is scared of is Grandma’s reaction. He believes Grandma would not like it if I had a smartphone. What I don’t understand is that Grandma has an unfiltered tablet and smartphone, and she doesn’t even work. So why should she care that I have a strongly filtered device? She has it for no reason, so why can’t I have it?
Can someone please help me out here?
It’s like asking why a button down colored shirt is different than a white shirt (even a white polo shirt).
Society, ANY society, automatically labels people based on externals.
And, believe it or not, you label YOURSELF based on externals.The way you dress, look, phone shape etc…. has an automatic effect on the “class” that people (and, more importantly, YOU) view you.
Once you are a “smartphone” person, you start associating with, and acting like, that “type” of person.
Same thing with clothing. Etc….
I’ve seen this fist hand and it’s a FACT!
maybe you can have a discussion with your parents and come to a compromise.
One suggestion – do you need a phone or any internet-connected device. I understand that some parnosos take require a phone – an uber drive, hgatzola, lhavdil, drug dealer. Otherwise, you can have a full computer with a big screen in a living room, turned towards the public so that everyone can see what is on the screen. That could solve a lot of concerns they have. You can have whatsapp on the computer also. And show that you are responsible individual otherwise.
You asked: “The million-dollar question is: Why does the flip format make it kosher? If the content I am using would be okay on a flip phone, why is the rectangle-shaped phone not allowed”?
Answer:
The negative effects of a smartphone (especially on teens who’s brains are developing rapidly) is much more about the device than about the content being accessed. Smartphones are from the most addictive substances that exist today and is much more dangerous than the actual negative content.
For example, I was recently talking to someone who is on the board of a high school in a modern community in which all the parents have internet and smartphones. He told me that due to the extreme negative impact the smartphones were having on the students, the school enacted a strict ban on smartphones (including the girl school), often against the will of the parents. He told me that in his experience it is very unlikely for a teen with a smartphone (even if they only use it for Kosher content) to grow up frum, let alone a Ben Torah. He said that in that school they do not monitor the flip phones if they are filtered, and they are understanding if a student did not withhold a nisayon with a flip phone. They feel that the negative impact of smartphones, even filtered, are worse than unfiltered flip phones).
Here is another example: There are unlimited members of our community addicted to WhatsApp statuses to one degree or another. (The younger the person is, the more the negative effects of this addiction). This addiction is far less common by those who access WhatsApp on a tablet only, and it doesn’t exist by those who access it on a flip phone.
Even the non Yidishe world who allow their kids unlimited internet access are talking about banning smartphones for school age children and teens.
It is a shame that as you write “All I get is people yelling at me…I can’t explain it now. Smartphones are bad”, sometimes such an approach has the opposite effect, and this is something that is easily explainable.
As someone who has always been a flip-phone user and a major advocate of davka using flip phones and being anti-smart phones, it pains me to say this: it’s just purely an arbitrary social norm at this point.
If true flip phones were still commercially available then this wouldn’t be the case. There would be real arguments for flip phones, which are still the arguments people are making despite being outdated. The only currently available flip phones are smart phones. Yes, you can have stuff done to them by frum organizations to dumb them down, but you can also do that with touch-screen phones.
The Cat phone is a great example because not only is it a smart phone, but it’s a straight up touchscreen! It just has a numpad hanging off of it for no reason.
Unfortunately, I would guess that the future will not see a revolution of true flip phones coming back. More likely, people will either conclude that it’s pointless to have a flip phone if it’s a smart phone anyway and just get regular smart phones, or people will double down harder on the flip-phone-cultural-status thing you’ve observed. I genuinely have no idea what I’ll do when my current flip phone kicks the bucket. I hate pointless social norms, but I really really hate touchscreens…
how does colored shirts affect the person negatively? actually the reason cc wears colored shirts is to not be affected by a white shirt
NC: The CAT is a smartphone that flips. There are still flip phones, which although do need filtering, aren’t smartphones.
Ard, how do white shirts affect the person negatively?
JMN, I think Lav Davka answered your question very well.
“Can someone please help me out here?”
No
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