A Barbie-branded phone has been launched in Britain and Europe which its makers say is aimed at helping young people take a break from their smartphones.
It's very pink and basically a very simple device with no front camera, only one game and very limited access to the internet.
Manufacturer HMD, which also makes phones for Nokia, says it is trying to capitalise on the growing number of people wanting a little “digital impact” in their lives.
But others say this goal can be achieved by teaching people to use their devices in a more healthy and controlled way.
There are growing calls from parents and campaigners to limit the time children spend on smartphones, or even ban these devices altogether.
Their concerns include suspicions that it will shorten children's attention spans, and fears that they may be exposed to harmful or illegal content.
Some schools are taking action, which is perhaps the most attention-grabbing Britain's most famous fee-paying school, Eton CollegeIt is providing some of its students with “brick” phones — sometimes called feature phones — that can only send and receive text messages and calls.
It says it seeks to “balance the benefits and challenges that technology brings to schools.”
and this week Mobile network EE joins the debate He has advised parents not to give smartphones to children below 11 years of age.
HMD senior executive Lars Silberbauer says his company is responding to these trends.
“We've seen this boom that started in the US reach Europe, and more and more people don't actually want a digital experience all the time,” he said.
Some may doubt how noble Mr Silberbauer's intentions really are – and he even admitted he would “love” to be able to incorporate a messaging platform like WhatsApp into the Barbie phone.
But I spent a day using it, and at the moment, there's no doubt that it was definitely effective as a digital detox, albeit very limited in its functionality.
It's a mirror-fronted flip phone and has no app store or touch screen. I had no social media, and the phone can't receive anything more advanced than SMS messages.
This means no text messages with “read receipts” or any function to see when someone is typing. This is the default setting on many smartphones – so I also didn't get many text messages.
Even with predictive text enabled I found the keypad with numbers and letters to be much slower than the touchscreen keyboard and as a result I had to call more people than usual, which probably isn't a bad thing.
And I discovered that you can only play the retro Nokia game Snake a few times, even though it's called Malibu Snake and it's pink.
But the handset certainly attracted a lot of attention as I walked around Glasgow city centre, especially from girls and young women.
There is, of course, the danger that instead of fussing over smartphones, parents will have to fuss over Barbie accessories – which would probably be just as unpleasant.
The phone's launch price is £99 in the UK – more than twice the price you'd pay for a non-branded Nokia feature phone. There are many other phones on the market that offer the same limited functionality, but without any kind of big corporate connection.
“I think a lot of people will be tempted to buy it for fun, but the reality is that everyone is so dependent on their smartphone that it will be hard for them to do anything more than a day or two of detox,” says phone expert Ben Wood, who has his own museum of devices released over the years.
Still, he says, there is a market for the devices he calls “dumbphones.” His firm, CCS Insight, estimates that about 400,000 dumbphones will be sold in the U.K. this year.
“This is an attractive area for a company like HMD,” he says.
Some experts suggest that taking away smartphones is not a real solution – after all they are so embedded in our lives – and that instead children should be taught how to use them in a healthy and safe way.
“Instead we should be thinking about how we can develop really good, really long-term, sustainable digital literacy skills in that generation,” says Pete Etchells, a professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University who has written extensively on the issue of screen time.
“I think we can all use our phones in healthier and more flexible ways,” he said.
HMD is also working on a separate project, a new device it's designing in collaboration with parents. The company says that so far more than 1,000 people have signed up to work on it.
And Mr Silberbaum believes the resulting handset will probably be something between a dumbphone and a smartphone.
“Do I want a smartphone with all the bells and whistles or do I want something that can help me take a more thoughtful approach to digital? That's the choice we want to offer,” he added.