No Phone Summer: It’s The Summer of the Retro Handheld

By Willa Rowe | July 7, 2025 | 11:00am

Video Games Features no phone summer

No Phone Summer: It’s The Summer of the Retro Handheld

There comes a moment roughly once a week where I look at my phone, consider how much time I’ve spent on it, and promptly fantasize about throwing the damned device onto the subway tracks before an oncoming train crushes it into tiny pieces. A solution to my growing disdain for my smartphone presented itself while, ironically, doomscrolling on TikTok: No Phone Summer.

The trend, which currently has over 400 videos on TikTok, picked up steam this May. Scrolling through the hashtag for No Phone Summer, you’ll see people posting their collections of physical media (piles of books, stacks of CDs, a handful of game cartridges) alongside devices such as digital cameras, e-readers, handheld consoles, and iPods. The videos are all aesthetically pleasing—often displaying the items messily strewn across beds in an effortless but always chic way—but speak to a conscious shift for many people in how to think about the way we engage with technology in our lives. “It feels like a continued reaction to the growing resentment we have towards our mobile devices,” Brendon Bigley, a host of the handheld gaming podcast Next Portable Console, told Endless Mode. “There’s no way to be surrounded by people glued to their phones and not recognize that while having a device that can do everything at once is enticing, it ultimately creates a black hole of distractions that prevent full focus on any specific element of its toolset.”

No Phone Summer’s solution to that “black hole of distractions” is to embrace the seemingly outdated charm of single use devices. An iPod or CD player for music, a camera for capturing moments, and a Kindle (or better yet, an actual book) for something to read are common picks that break down a smartphone’s most common uses across dedicated devices. As for gaming, the unifying element in people’s choice of hardware is the handheld factor; it’s all about gaming on the go. TikToks under the No Phone Summer hashtag are full of PlayStation Portables and Vitas as well as Nintendo handhelds from the Game Boy Advance up to the Switch (with the 3DS perhaps the most popular of all).

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There is a practicality to these choices that comes from their impeccable—and relatively small—design. Bigley, who swears by the PSP Go because it “feels like nothing” in the pocket, notes that comfort trumps power, saying “I don’t mind locking myself into one console’s library if that console looks sick and fits in my pocket or my bag easily.” As someone who openly detests the size of modern handheld gaming devices—you will never catch me lugging my Steam Deck or even my Switch on the subway—being able to put my 3DS or PSP in my pocket and not have it take up much more space than my phone has been a delight. Though it does just reignite my belief that smartphones themselves are too big as well, but I digress.

Nostalgia (naturally) plays a factor in the prevalence of older hardware but so does intentionality about how we consume. “The past few months I’ve seen more and more anti-overconsumption videos,” says YouTuber Hamster Buttocks, “with people realizing more isn’t always better or needed.” Hamster posted a video to YouTube on May 13 on how to prepare for a No Phone Summer, and it has been viewed over 33,000 times since. A return to older hardware often is accomplished not by purchasing but by resurfacing things you already own. I’ve held on to my PSP since I got it in 2005 as a birthday present and the 3DS I now carry around is a loaner from my partner’s brother.

This willingness to uncouple yourself from the constant encouragement to buy the latest hardware (I do not have Switch 2 money) has the dual benefit of breaking away from toxic ways of thinking about art itself. The focus that a dedicated device brings to the user, as opposed to the phone, allows for more conscious thinking about what we are engaging with. It encourages an appreciation for games not based on modern graphical standards as well as rebuffing the widespread trend of remakes and remasters by showing audiences can engage with older games as they are. As Bigley puts it, “Just because games have become more technologically complex doesn’t mean people will be turned off by older titles or hardware. So much of that stuff holds up wonderfully.” He’s right! Have you played Persona 3 Portable on original hardware? It blows Reload out of the water.

In addition to practicality and frugality, No Phone Summer is also about personality. Rarely are the handhelds seen in videos without some customization. From stickers to keychains, the PSPs and 3DSs on display are all unique due to how the owner has customized them. Yes, that is still something you can do on modern hardware, but the handheld devices themselves were more conducive to expressing yourself thanks to the wide array of colors that they came in. Furthermore, when locked into a single device’s library, the games you choose to play (often another physical item to show off) become another way to express something about yourself and what you like.

What does it say about me—besides that I have impeccable taste—that my 3DS game of choice is Fire Emblem: Awakening or that my PSP is loaded up with the likes of Jeanne d’Arc and Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky? For some style is all there is. As one user on TikTok said on their post under the No Phone Summer hashtag, “Honestly this is just an excuse to show off my stuff!” For others it is an act of rebellion against our progressively toxic relationships with smartphones. It can, however, be both. “The trend is an acknowledgment that the current technocratic landscape is poison,” says Bigley, “While also allowing handheld choice and game choice to be a method of displaying style.

Regardless of what brings people to No Phone Summer (or even a less phone summer, as others aspire to), there are noticeable benefits. Relying on single use devices encourages more intentionality in how we do use our smartphones (because we inevitably will need them for something). Hamster compares it to growing up with a household computer or landline phone, in that you only use them when you have a specific task in mind that requires them. Similarly, by engaging more purposefully with devices dedicated to the tasks we most commonly use our mobile phones for we become more aware of exactly what we are using those phones for and how it helps or hinders us.

It has also been shown time and again that smartphone addiction is a real thing, and doomscrolling can have an oversized impact on mental health. Decoupling ourselves from our phones is a fast way to improve our mood, something that perhaps everyone needs in what feels like especially uncertain times. “Not being connected all the time gives a sense of peace and a more grounding experience,” says Hamster, “Keeping your inner peace closer to yourself and being aware of what you’re doing and why is a lot more enjoyable than going through apps, just because that’s the easiest.”

Willa Rowe is a queer games critic based in New York City whose writing has been featured in Digital Trends, Kotaku, Inverse, and more. She also hosts the Girl Mode podcast. When she isn’t talking games she can be found on Bluesky rooting for the New York Mets.