To combat addiction to screens and ubiquitous tracking, and to block the collection of personal data, manufacturers are offering models of mobile phones that allow the consumer not to participate in the hegemony of GAFAM.
A smartphone that respects user privacy
The French brand Murena offers a smartphone allowing users to systematically block the collection and transmission of data. This protection is made possible thanks to the integration of an interface designed specifically for this: the /e/OS operating system, which runs on Android.
Unlike other interfaces, Murena guarantees not to scan your data either in your phone or in your cloud space. The phone does not track your location or collect data about what you do with your apps. Thanks to open-source applications, this phone therefore allows you to browse the web, check your e-mails, manage a calendar, or access a mapping app, among other common uses found on conventional smartphones. If the user wishes, Android applications are also accessible.
Less connected phones are gaining ground
To protect your privacy, it is better not to use a smartphone at all. This also has an additional advantage: no risk of addiction or spending too much time on your smartphone, if you use it little. To encourage reasonable use of smartphones, manufacturers offer phones that can benefit from an internet connection to be shared on a computer if necessary, and which, unlike the old “dumbphones” have a touch keyboard like smartphones, this which makes writing easier.
The Light Phone, for example, was designed to be used at the bare minimum to combat user distraction for which conventional smartphones have become a real nightmare. This phone is equipped with a loudspeaker, a proximity sensor, two side buttons, a USB port, a SIM card slot, a microphone and finally an E-ink touch screen .
As Venture Beat points out, it is three times lighter than the lightest Samsung on the market, but offers, in addition to calls and SMS, a route application, and a podcast and music player. With the return of less “smart” phones and the growing concern over data collection, the phone market seems to be shifting towards a new paradigm. Whether to escape permanent tracking, the dictatorship of sharing, or digital pollution, young and old are abandoning the permanent connection to the Internet.
While in Grenoble, a collective pleads for the reinstallation of the good old telephone booths, the millenials in the United States claim on social networks their taste for old flip phones, those that did not have so many applications ready to follow our every move.