Last Updated on 09/06/2019 by TDH Publishing (A)
Imagine your life switching that latest iPhone or Samsung Galaxy smartphone with an old school flip phone. No Internet, no Swiggy, no Google Maps, no camera at your fingertips. Think you can handle it? But if you can still survive without these “necessities”, here’s an amazing announcement for you. You can get a chance of winning $1,000.
Utah-based Internet and service provider Frontier communications is now selecting a candidate to go old school and use a flip phone, which was a luxury back in the 1990s, and live his life without a smartphone for a week.
The idea is promoted as a celebration to the 30th anniversary of the first flip phone. “With the 30th anniversary of the first flip phone, Frontier is looking for a brave soul willing to ditch their smartphone for a week and go old school with nothing but a flip phone,” said Frontier spokesperson Javier Mendoza in an email.
Surprisingly, more than 30,000 people have applied for participation. In order to get selected, entrants must fill up a form and explain in about 200 words why they’d be a perfect choice. According to Mendoza, the winner will be paid $1,000 to conduct the experiment, maintain a journal and record how much time it takes to do to perform simple tasks, like texting and checking emails.
The company is also willing to encourage the winner to pin down how many hours they would sleep with scrolling on their smartphones, since night-time usage of mobile phones is associated with lack of sleep on weekdays, according to a recent study by Imperial College, London.
In this contest, the participant would be provided with a so-called surviving kit and a package containing alternatives for some smartphone functions. Its package consists of a pocket phonebook, a physical map, as an alternative for Google Maps, along with a notebook and a pen.
CDs would be provided to the participant for enjoying songs, to make up for music libraries. But all the songs would be from the ‘90s. Let’s see if it’s the worst experience ever or a creation of a new sense of freedom.
