What’s the point of buying the latest smartphone?

Happy new smartphone season to all those celebrating. It’s that time of year again when tech giants do everything they can to convince you to upgrade your gadgets.

We recently witnessed the premiere of the latest Pixel 9 phones from Google and the presentation of the iPhone 16 from Apple.

In July, Samsung released the latest versions of its foldable phones, the Z Flip6 and Z Fold6, and Huawei just upped the ante in that segment by unveiling a phone in China called the Mate XT that folds in two, splitting the screen into three sections.

As smartphone sales decline worldwide, the marketing messages being conveyed are becoming increasingly glamorous.

Apple CEO Tim Cook promised the iPhone 16 would “redefine what a smartphone can do,” whatever that means. Google’s vice president of product management, Brian Rakowski, gushed over the “stunning” design of the “gorgeous” Pixel 9 (whisper: it still looks like a black rectangle to me).

Huawei now has its own advertising song for consumers, according to a press release, which “strongly expresses the pursuit of dreams, emphasizing that every breakthrough and success achieved by the company comes from believing in dreams.”

Yes, we are still talking about phones.

Both Apple and Google have made a point of building AI capabilities into their photos. Google’s new Magic Editor can add AI-generated content to existing photos, as well as remove unwanted bits (with varying degrees of success, in my experience).

Apple Intelligence technology in the iPhone 16 includes ChatGPT developer OpenAI technology built into the Siri digital assistant, which many felt was long overdue for an update.

But did anyone actually say they wanted all this?

Mobile expert Ben Wood of research firm CCS Insight said that while AI features are meant to make digital life easier, they are not necessarily a priority for everyone.

“I think most people already know what they want from a phone, and one of the most important things is the camera,” he says.

Phone designers know this too. The technical specifications of each new mobile phone camera are usually an improvement over the previous generation. But even that is no longer a guaranteed sales generator.

“What’s definitely happening is that people are keeping their phones longer. In 2013, 30 million phones were sold a year,” Mr. Wood adds. “This year, it’ll be about 13.5 million.”

Of course, there is an ongoing cost of living crisis that is affecting people’s purchasing decisions. And every cell phone has an environmental price tag attached to it, and all of them contain rare elements and precious metals.

Moreover, completely giving up smartphones is becoming increasingly popular, especially among parents and young people.

Many British schools are reviewing their smartphone policies, with several already opting for outright bans. Students starting at Eton State School this term were given feature phones (sometimes, unpopularly, called featureless phones), and I’ve heard of several other institutions, both in the private and public sectors, considering following suit.

Mobile network EE recommends that children under 11 do not own smartphones at all.

Nova East leads the north-west London branch of the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign, which calls on parents and schools to work together to delay the age at which children are allowed to use mobile devices.

“We’re not anti-tech, we’re just pro-child,” he says. “We’d like to see tech companies develop a kid-friendly phone that offers only the basics like calling, messaging, music and maps, with no extra features.”

Dr. Sasha Luccioni, a scientist at artificial intelligence company Hugging Face, says that so far the message is not getting through.

“There’s a growing talk of ‘digital sobriety’ in the way we create and use technology – but smartphone designers seem to be heading in the exact opposite direction,” he says.

I presented this to Apple, Google and Samsung. The latter said: “Samsung users can choose how they use their Galaxy phones to best suit their needs. For example, digital wellness features allow users to choose which features they use, when they use them and for how long, such as setting a screen time limit for certain apps they want to limit.”

One company that is listening to the growing calls to limit phone functionality is Finnish company HMD — which still makes basic Nokia phones. Last month, it released a Barbie-themed phone in partnership with toymaker Mattel, and I got to try it out. The two words I would use to describe it are: functional. And pink.

Like most feature phones, there are no apps, no app store, no selfie camera, and only one game. If you want to listen to music, there is an FM radio.

CCS Insight predicts that around 400,000 entry-level handsets will be sold in the UK this year – far from enough to dethrone the iPhone as the world’s best-selling phone in the near future, but not a bad result for the market.

I just checked my own screen time over the past seven days, and I’ve averaged about five hours of screen time per day. That’s a scary statistic, I admit — but it wasn’t just doomscrolling (seriously). My phone is a work tool, and I also use it for banking, shopping, navigation, health tracking, and family planning, and yes, gaming and social media.

“I think we always forget that there are so many benefits to using smartphones,” says Pete Etchells, professor of psychology and science communication at the University of Bath Spa, who has written extensively on screen time.

“We tend to focus more on the negatives. It’s always worth remembering that these are convenience technologies. They help us. They have some good aspects, too.”

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