You do not need me, or HMD (human mobile devices), to tell you that there is an epidemic of screen time among young people, but the new research of the latter on the subject highlight how much the smartphones (and in particular social media) actively harm a whole generation.
Of 12,000 adolescents interviewed by the manufacturer of telephones Nokia for a recent study, more than half said they feared being addicted to their phone, and 52% said they had been approached by an online unknown. 53% said they saw something they wanted they did not do it – which, for most respondents, was sexual or violent content – and 56% said they had seen cases of intimidation. Dark statistics continue.
Parents also know that these problems exist, but existing smartphone guarantees such as screen time applications are easily bypassed by a curious teenager who has access to YouTube or Reddit. To remedy this, HMD has teamed up with the manufacturer of SmartWatch Xplora to develop the “first smartphone for adolescents” – an apparently regular handset that gives parents greater control over their child’s smartphone experience (potentially first).
Launch in May for £ 229 (international prices must still be confirmed), the HMD Fusion X1 – when purchased alongside an XPlora subscription – will allow parents to activate, deactivate or limit access to applications of their choice. This subscription also includes continuous location monitoring at 20 second intervals, emergency SOs calling for the teenager owner of the smartphone, as well as low battery alerts and remote access for parents.
In addition, a dedicated school mode function will minimize distractions during school hours by locking specific applications and features as you wish, and HMD has also confirmed that its Safetonet software – which uses AI to detect and block harmful content before reaching the user – will start to deploy on compatible devices (the merger X1 included) later this year.
I know what you think: no teenager would voluntarily give their parents this level of control over their smartphone. And it may have been true a few years ago. But young people become absolutely more aware of the dangers of social media dependence (HMD’s conclusions are in no way abnormal) and if the draw of “ more scrolling ” is too strong to resist, perhaps adolescents are now more willing to give someone else the keys (after all, “ Rot ” Brain ” was named the word of Oxford 2024 reason).
Indeed, as founded by the founder of HMD, Jean-François Baril, the MWC, the merger X1 is “the phone that adolescents want, with the security that parents want”. Nor will it have an infantilizing design, the company teasing an industrial style combined of conventional appearance at MWC.
HMD also has two new functionality phones on the way: the HMD Barca 3210 and the HMD Barca Fusion. The first is a renamed version of the Nokia 3210, with exclusive notes on Barcelona’s theme and Easter eggs such as a engraved logo, hidden messages of players, personalized wallpapers and, yes, even a version on the theme of Barcelona de Snake.
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HMD Barca Fusion, on the other hand, is a personalized version of the HMD fusion handset with 11 signatures of shiny players in its rear panel. Like the 3210, the fusion is also designed with Tiktok Tikom sieve in mind, it therefore has a detoxification mode to keep users concentrated on the things that matter.
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Drew Barrymore also appeared on stage at the MWC Keynote in HMD to tease “Project Wildflower”, an upcoming collaboration between the actor and HMD to fight against the aforementioned screen epidemic. We do not yet have the details, but the involvement of one of the biggest names in Hollywood will undoubtedly attract the very necessary attention to a problem that HMD is clearly determined to solve.
