Chunky bricks and Noughties flip phones are creeping back into the mainstream, as an antidote to smartphone addiction. These phones (now dubbed “dumb phones” in contrast to our present day “smart” ones) have little to recommend them in the 21st century: ugly design, unintuitive functionality (lest we forget tortuously trying to send a text on a nine-button keyboard) and an association with the diet culture and tabloid hysteria of the 2000s (flip phones being a fundamental accessory in the imagery of both). But whatever their fate, the longevity of dumb phones will be decided online