Many have chosen to use a flip phone to avoid distractions and limit their access to the internet. However, the overwhelming majority of flip phones that are compatible with today’s phone service providers come with an internet browser that opens up websites. There’s even a flip phone called the CAT S22 that looks like a basic flip phone on the outside but is, in fact, a smartphone with a touch screen that can download almost any app, just like a smartphone! One reviewer of this phone describes it as “a unique device that blurs the line between smartphone and flip phone.”

If you’re choosing a flip phone to limit internet access, either for yourself or your child, make sure it’s genuinely a flip phone and not a smartphone in disguise. TAG can block the internet on many flip phones, but not all of them. Check TAGBaltimore.org for the latest list of flip or basic phones that can be blocked at TAG.

From Tech Triumphs, a Bi-Weekly TAG Baltimore Column in Baltimore Jewish Home