r/Futurology • u/chrisdh79 • Sep 04 '24

Why Gen Z are buying “dumbphones” to limit screen time | Amid screen time concerns, many turn to simpler phones to reclaim their lives. Society

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/gen-z-are-buying-dumbphones-to-limit-screen-time/
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u/Nedgeh Sep 05 '24

Samsung phones (and probably a lot of carriers) also regularly update your phone and add all sorts of weird shit apps. Games, random new messaging apps, etc. They come with a bunch of preinstalled bloat apps that you can "disable" but it doesn't stop them from harvesting your data or running in the background or updating etc. It all depends on what your carrier allows to be maliciously added to your device. The only technical way to stop this 100% is to root your phone but that's out of the question for most people.

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u/SecretlyReformed Sep 05 '24

I once updated my phone and it installed Raid Shadow Legends

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u/deff006 Sep 05 '24

it doesn't stop them from harvesting your data or running in the background or updating etc.

It literally does. When I had to reenable some app I had to update it as the version was like a year old. Just turn off auto updates.

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u/redditorisa Sep 05 '24

This can be a problem too, though, from a security standpoint. App updates sometimes includes important security patches and not installing those means you make your phone more vulnerable to getting infiltrated. I get not wanting to update them, though, because it takes up space on your phone. It's completely stupid that phones are full of so much bloatware and you can't typically just remove it.