PERTH, AUSTRALIA / RankWire.AI / – A recent study conducted by Edith Cowan University explores how interest in vintage phone accessories reflects a broader trend of distancing from smartphones. Researcher Dr Jess Hardley analyzed ways individuals manage devices that have become integral to everyday routines, including wall-mounted smartphone docks and handsets with traditional coiled cords. The study also investigates strategies aimed at reducing phone accessibility. Hardley’s research is based on over ten years of interaction with Australian smartphone users.
The study emphasizes physical separation from phones rather than simply limiting screen time, with participants describing actions such as leaving devices in another room or locking them away during certain periods. One participant kept a phone inside a work drawer after mobile gaming began affecting their focus. Additionally, Hardley documented methods like app restrictions, greyscale screen settings, and other measures designed to lessen immediate device access. The findings focus on intentional adjustments in how people store and handle their smartphones.
Retro phone accessories contribute to these behaviors, with some products enabling users to place their smartphones in fixed locations instead of carrying them around. Others connect modern devices to handsets designed to resemble traditional landline phones. Hardley examined these accessories alongside phone-free events and locking pouches used during concerts. The research does not assess whether individual products enhance concentration or wellbeing but instead highlights how users are transforming the physical relationship with their devices.
Physical distance becomes part of smartphone use
The paper situates these practices within a broader history of mobile phones becoming deeply integrated into daily routines. Smartphones combine communication, entertainment, work tools, cameras, payments, and internet access in portable devices. Hardley’s study investigates what occurs when users intentionally make these devices more difficult to reach, describing physical distance as a method for adjusting smartphone habits. It also considers how device restrictions operate across homes, workplaces, events, and other shared environments.
Titled Revisiting the ‘Snug Tether’: Smartphones in an Era of Scroll-Free Social Events, Landline Accessories, and Device Bans, the paper was published in M/C Journal. It explores scroll-free social gatherings, retro landline accessories, phone jails, and restrictions on smartphone use, revisiting earlier academic ideas about mobile phones being kept close to users. The focus is on practices that interrupt that proximity and on who participates in various forms of smartphone distancing.
Limits on phone use go beyond individuals
The research coincides with the implementation of restrictions on mobile phone use in Australian schools, where education ministers agreed to ban or limit phones in all public schools from Term 1 of 2024. A 2025 survey involving nearly 1,000 New South Wales principals reported notable changes following the restrictions, with 87% indicating that students were less distracted in classrooms and 81% noting improved learning outcomes, reflecting institutional limits on phone access during specified times of the day.
Hardley’s study continues to focus on how individuals manage their connections with smartphones amid their pervasive role in daily life. It highlights physical separation, decreased accessibility, and phone-free environments as key practices users adopt. Retro accessories are seen as part of this larger set of behaviors rather than a distinct technology category. Edith Cowan University released a summary of these findings on Aug. 18, 2026, adding documented examples to ongoing research into the evolving patterns of smartphone use in Australia.