Emergency Alerts in the Age of Complexity: Are Dumbphones Left Behind?
Today, Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) have seemingly become the emergency manager’s best friend – and why wouldn’t they? They are convenient and get the job done of alerting people to nearby threats and hazards.
As part of the Alert and Warning Guidelines, the URL is where we are supposed to put additional information about those very hazards – as the initial messages are limited to a limit of either 90 or 360 characters – depending on the version and device capability. Assuming that internet is operational, there may be an expectation that the public will be able to find out more important information by utilizing the URL. Yet there may now be growing segments of the population whose devices do not have the functionality to click on those links to begin with. After all, WEAs are a voluntary opt-in system for carriers (FCC, 2025).
But this comes at a potentially great cost – as some people begin to move away from smart devices, alerting authorities may continue to invest in EAS methods that are able to reach fewer and fewer people – seeming to be pulled in opposite directions.
With the gaining popularity of so called “dumbphone” (also called “feature phone”) manufacturers, each seemingly racing to fill the demand, it is unclear how many of these devices even have the basic functionality to receive WEAs, let alone click on URLs. There are some, for instance, such as Sunbeam Wireless’s F1 Pro Willow that lack Wi-Fi, a Web browser, Bluetooth, or even text messaging (Sunbeam Wireless, n.d.).
From my research, there are 3 distinct groups of people simultaneously moving away from smartphone usage – albeit some smaller than others:
Older Adults who may become overwhelmed with smartphones and want simpler devices cater to them and their needs and have the basics like calling and texting.
Young adults, college students and millennials trying to decouple themselves from smartphones and social media to take back their lives, both mentally and physically.
Children and teens attending schools that have banned smart-phone use.
Importantly, 2 of these groups are broadly considered to have Access and Functional Needs (AFN) – children and older adults, who may be hard enough to reach as is. This, of course is also not counting the approximately 12 million people who live in households without any internet connection (NTIA, 2024), let alone the many millions more without roaming internet on their phones (often due to economic factors) – meaning access to the information in the WEA URL may be inaccessible from that standpoint as well. But that is a topic for another time.
It is also worth noting that, even if you have a WEA-enabled device, someone would not receive WEAs in a service area where the provider is not offering WEA or if their device is roaming on a provider network that does not support the WEA service (FCC, 2025).
Additionally, dumbphones have less accurate geo-targeting data as they are reliant on nearest cell towers instead of GPS. This could impact everything from not being properly alerted due to WEA polygon location identification issues, to inaccurate 911 geolocation pinging during emergency calls. This could be especially challenging in rural areas where there are often greater distances between towers.
Older Adults
Whether you like it or not, touch screens and access to thousands of apps are not ideal for everyone. For many older adults, smartphones can be overwhelming. It is no secret that as we age, we begin to lose dexterity, vision, mobility, or other functioning that at one point in our lives we thought unfathomable. Reverting to simplicity and a technology more attentive to those needs may become the key to addressing some of these challenges, especially among generations that did not grow up with smartphones or the internet. While there is no telling how these preferences will look in the future, dumbphones in today’s world undoubtedly offer some benefits.
One such device, the Artfone C1 is equipped with large tactile buttons, increased durability and battery life, hearing-aid compatibility, and a dedicated emergency button to call emergency contacts with one press.
Best Buy, for example, has seemingly gone out of their way to purchase and operate a phone service called Lively – which sells phones and plans specifically designed for older adults in-mind. While they do offer a unique smartphone-based option – the Jitterbug Smart4, it seems that their flip phone – the Jitterbug Flip2 is more popular.
Young adults, college students and millennials
There is an increasing movement of young adults and millennials moving away from smartphones in favor of dumbphones - and although exact figures are hard to find, if the number of articles in recent years has any correlation, the trend appears to be growing. For instance, as of May 18, 2025, the LightPhone brand (which has 3 models) had sold over 100,000 units (Pugachevsky, 2025), with the second model (LightPhone II) being sought after by schools, parents, young adults, college students and millennials. Admittedly, most of the consumers for this particular brand are between the ages of 25 and 40. This is just one brand however, and there is no shortage of others as seen in this spreadsheet I put together (sheet 2), including a number of models from Nokia – which saw its phone sales double in 2023.
According to Counterpoint Research, a technology market research company regularly cited by outlets like Bloomberg and Reuters, dumbphone sales in the United States were estimated to reach 2.8 million units in 2023 alone, with stable growth continuing in the coming years (Counterpoint Research, 2023). While this number is relatively small considering the U.S. population, it does suggest the start of a growing trend. According to a 2024 survey conducted by Statista, about 28% of Gen Z respondents stated that they were interested in getting a dumbphone (Statista, n.d.).
For years, a regular rectangle touchscreen has been the standard for mobile phones, but new data shows that online searches for flip phones are up 15,369% over the past year among Gen Z and younger Millennials. (Beaty, 2023)
There is even an entire Reddit community with over 135,000 members dedicated to discussing and showing off their dumbphones: https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/
Children
In recent years there has been a growing call for the restricting or outright banning of smartphones in schools across the county. While there are many reasons for this phenomenon, social life, mental health and limiting distractions are cited as primary concerns. For example, Governor Newsom of California signed “The Phone-Free School Act” (Assembly Bill 3216) in September 2024 which formally requires every school district, charter school and county office of education to adopt a policy limiting or prohibiting the use of smartphones by July 1, 2026 (Newsom, 2024). As of April 30th, 2025, eleven states have passed state-wide policies to ban or restrict cellphone use in schools (Panchal & Zitter, 2025). Given the largely bipartisan support for these restrictions (Demillo, 2025), schools and parents are increasingly turning to “dumbphones” to communicate with children and teens while they are in educational environments.
This trend is not just happening in the United States either. According to researchers from the London School of Economics, “one in seven countries has recently introduced policies to limit or prevent pupil access to smartphones at school, and more debating such policies” (Rahali et al., 2024).
What could this all mean for Emergency Managers and Wireless Emergency Alerts?
While it is impossible to look into the future, one thing is clear about our profession: we need to meet people where they are. This could be socially, economically, and now – technologically. People are living their lives and we need to make our best efforts to reach, educate, interact with, and train them (and their families/communities) to be prepared and resilient. That first step is wholly important – being able to reach them – especially in an emergency.
So what can we do about it? A few ideas:
Community Education
Given that this WEA-dumbphone interoperability topic does not appear to be well-written about, community education and outreach will likely be key to consumers during blue sky days. This may allow them the time to identify backup methods to make sure they will be in the know – such as radios.
Emergency managers in locations with higher concentrations of older adults could do more community outreach that target those populations to better understand how these technological constraints may affect emergency response and evacuation. This may mean visiting retirement communities or nursing homes and talking to the administration about SOPs during local emergencies when a WEA is received.
Educate people on the importance of checking on and communicating with people with disabilities, older adults, children, etc. (AFN) during an emergency, especially if they have dumbphones. This may help bridge the information gap if a WEA has not gotten through to the devices used by these individuals.
Partnership
Build relationships with your local CBOs who may be trusted partners in the community and have access to personal contact information of people who may be harder to reach in an emergency – such as people with AFN. These organizations could act like a force-multiplier to share critical information that others may be able to get from a WEA. But they have to know that this is a potential need that you may have in blue skies so that they can be prepared to assist in gray skies.
Innovation
Create a method for when a WEA is received by a device, it automatically opens the URL without the need to click on it. Of course, this would only work if there is internet, but it could theoretically eliminate many of the issues faced by flip phone users.
Create systems that can identify which phones were unable to receive WEAs (like an email bounce-back) and work with appropriate carrier and manufacturer stakeholders to fix these potential issues.
Compliance
To better understand potential scope, authorities should investigate which (and how many) dumbphone models cannot receive WEAs (and which versions) or access embedded URLs (see sheet 1 for examples).
FCC could push for WEA carrier compliance for local and state alerts (currently only national alerts are required) and eliminate the opt-in method. Doing so could bridge WEA interoperability gaps between carriers, services, and manufacturers that can lead to WEAs not getting to the public. If everyone is forced to be compliant, that process must start from the ground up with manufacturers making sure that their devices work with WEAs.
Consumers using Virtual Mobile Network Operators (MVNOs) and some smaller carriers – which do not operate their own towers – have reportedly faced inconsistent WEA reception as well.
FEMA IPAWS, FCC, and alerting authorities could investigate and develop protocols for when it is appropriate to send critical information like shelter location as part of the initial WEA. Yes, figuring out how to do this given the character limitations will be very challenging; but for those without the ability to click on URLs – this could be lifesaving.
References
Beaty, A. (2023). Interest in Flip Phones is Exploding Among Gen Z and Younger Millennials. ZDNET. https://www.zdnet.com/article/interest-in-flip-phones-is-exploding-among-gen-z-and-younger-millennials/
Counterpoint Research. (2023). U.S. Feature Phone Market Stages Comeback as Gen Z, Millennials Advocate Digital Detox. Counterpoint Research. https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/us-feature-phone-market/
Demillo, A. (2025). Banning Cellphones in Schools Gains Popularity in Red and Blue States. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/school-cell-phone-bans-states-e6d1fe8ddfde33f086d5cd2a19f4c148
FCC. (2025). Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA). Federal Communications Commission. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/wireless-emergency-alerts-wea
Newsom, G. (2024). Governor Newsom Signs Legislation to Limit the Use of Smartphones During School Hours. Governor Gavin Newsom; California Governor’s Office. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/09/23/governor-newsom-signs-legislation-to-limit-the-use-of-smartphones-during-school-hours/
NTIA. (2024). New NTIA Data Show 13 million More Internet Users in the U.S. in 2023 than 2021. National Telecommunications and Information Administration. https://www.ntia.gov/blog/2024/new-ntia-data-show-13-million-more-internet-users-us-2023-2021
Panchal, N., & Zitter, S. (2025). A Look at State Efforts to Ban Cellphones in Schools and Implications for Youth Mental Health. KFF; Kaiser Family Foundation. https://www.kff.org/mental-health/issue-brief/a-look-at-state-efforts-to-ban-cellphones-in-schools-and-implications-for-youth-mental-health/
Pugachevsky, J. (2025). The Age of Dumb Phones is Here: Why So Many Tech Lovers are Embracing the “Appstinence” Movement. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/appstinence-movement-tech-lovers-dumping-smartphones-age-of-dumb-phones-2025-5
Rahali, M., Kidron, B., & Livingstone, S. (2024). Smartphone Policies in Schools: What Does the Evidence Say? . London School of Economics and Political Science. https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/125554/1/Smartphone_policies_in_schools_Rahali_et_al_2024_002_.pdf
Statista. (n.d.). Share of Consumers Interested in Acquiring a Dumb Phone in the United States in 2024, by Generation. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1496045/interest-in-buying-dumb-phones-by-generation-us/
Sunbeam Wireless. (n.d.). F1 Pro Willow . F1 Pro Willow – Rugged Dumbphone with Talk Only (No Bluetooth or Wi-Fi); Sunbeam Wireless. https://sunbeamwireless.com/product/f1-pro-willow-rugged-dumbphone-with-talk-only-no-bluetooth-or-wifi/