Nu phone, who dis?”
It’s a phrase I expected to be typing out with nostalgic joy – for the first time in two decades – as I switched on the new and improved Nokia 3210. Twenty-five years after its original heyday, the iconic mobile phone of my youth has had a relaunch for 2024 – a savvy response to a rising backlash against the insidious side effects of heavy smartphone use. Alas, I waited in vain: to be able to send such a pithy response, I’d have first had to receive a text message. But no one – not even my 72-year-old mother – sends text messages anymore. They use WhatsApp.
