A Barbie-branded mobile phone has been launched in the UK and Europe in a move that its makers say is aimed at helping young people wean themselves off their smartphones.
It's very pink and is essentially a very basic device, with no front-facing camera, only one game, and very limited access to the internet.
HMD, the manufacturer which also makes phones for Nokia, said it was trying to capture a “sharp increase” in people looking to reduce the “digital impact” of their lives.
But some argue that this would be better achieved by teaching people how to use their devices in healthier, more controlled ways.
There is a growing call from parents and activists to limit the amount of time children spend on smartphones, or even ban them altogether.
Their concerns range from doubts that their children will be unable to concentrate to fears that they may be exposed to harmful or illegal content.
Several schools are taking action, perhaps most notably Eton College, Britain's most prestigious fee-paying school, which provides some of its students with “brick” mobile phones (also known as feature phones) that can only send and receive text messages and make calls.
The school says it wants to “balance the benefits and challenges that technology brings to the school.”
And this week mobile network EE joined the debate by advising parents not to give smartphones to children under 11 at all.
It's a trend that HMD senior executive Lars Silberbauer says the company is responding to.
“This surge that started in the US is now spreading to Europe, with more and more people saying they don't want to have a constant digital experience,” he said.
One might question whether Silberbauer's motives are truly noble, but he did admit that he would “love” to have a messaging platform like WhatsApp built into the Barbie phone.
But I've been using it for a day now, and while it has very limited functionality, I can't doubt that it was certainly an effective digital detox.
It's a mirror-front flip phone, with no app store or touchscreen, no social media, and the phone can't receive anything more advanced than SMS messages.
This means there are no “read notifications” for text messages or the ability to see if someone is typing. This is the default setting on many smartphones, so I didn't get many text messages either.
Even with predictive text enabled, the number and letter keypad is much slower than the touchscreen keyboard, and I ended up calling more people than usual, which may not be a bad thing.
And then I realized there was only so much I could play the retro Nokia game “Snake” — even if it was called “Malibu Snake” and was pink.
However, as I walked around Glasgow city centre with this phone I attracted a lot of attention, especially from girls and young women.
Of course, there's also the risk that, instead of asking for smartphones, parents will be asked for Barbie merchandise, which may be equally unwelcome.
The phone will launch in the UK at £99, which is twice the price of Nokia's unbranded feature phone – there are plenty of phones on the market that offer similar limited features but without the partnership with a big company.
“I'm sure a lot of people will want to buy one just for fun, but the reality is we're all too dependent on our phones to do much more than detox every now and then,” said Ben Wood, a mobile phone expert who owns a museum of devices released over the years.
Still, he says there is a market for so-called “dumb phones”, with his company CCS Insight predicting around 400,000 will be sold in the UK this year.
“That's an attractive niche market for a company like HMD,” he says.
Some experts suggest that taking away smartphones isn't the real solution — after all, they're so ingrained in our lives — and that instead kids need to be taught how to use them in a healthy and safe way.
“What we should be doing instead is thinking about how we equip that generation with really good, really long-term and sustainable digital literacy skills,” says Pete Etchells, professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University, who has written extensively on the issue of screen time.
“I think we can all learn to use our phones in healthier, more resilient ways,” he said.
HMD is also working on another project: designing new devices in collaboration with parents. The company says more than 1,000 people have signed up to work on the project so far.
And Silverbaum acknowledges that the ultimate mobile phone could be something between a dumb phone and a smartphone.
“Do you want a phone that has every feature or do you want something that helps you take a more thoughtful approach to digital? That's the choice we want to give you,” he said.
