The Amish “Black Box” Phone: The Device They Built to Keep Big Tech Out

Looking at its name alone, the Amish Black Box Phone has an air of secrecy or mystery to it. Is it some sort of clandestine Amish spy-ops device? A tool meant for conveying bad news?

Of course, many of us will connect “black box” with the recording devices used to record communication in plane crashes, another morbid association.

But it’s none of those things. Rather, the black box phone is a simple communication tool used daily by growing numbers of Amish around the country.

It’s another example of an Amish tech “workaround” – essentially, altering a technology – or creating alternative ways of using it, such as via a third party – to allow users to take part in the benefits of a given tech, while conforming to church rules.

How does the black box phone work, and why was it created? Lindsay Ems, author of Virtually Amish: Preserving Community at the Internet’s Margins, explains in a new piece at The MIT Press Reader:

Few devices demonstrate the Amish’s unique perspective on technology better than the “black-box phone.” On my first day of fieldwork, I interviewed an Amish business owner, Joe, who told me that the contraption was the source of much debate within his Amish settlement.

This device is a landline phone with an attachment (a “black box”) that connects the phone to the local cellular network.

It is powered by plugging it into an automobile’s cigarette lighter, effectively making it a mobile telephone. Joe showed me a prototype of the mobile version; in his case, the black box and the landline phone were placed in a plywood box for transport, so construction crews could use them on the road.

What is the benefit of such a workaround, from the Amish perspective? First, to identify the problem: in the church’s view, modern communication devices – like the smartphone or even the basic cell phone – open the doors to temptation:

In Joe’s settlement, the black-box phone was developed in response to a very specific social problem: Roughly 100 crews left the settlement daily for their construction jobs and needed a way to communicate while away from home.

At the same time, several ministers believed that the cell phones already adopted by many community members should be abandoned.

They worried that private text messages could facilitate extramarital relationships. And smartphones, they feared, tempted users to access unfiltered, immoral content such as pornography, which could undermine human intimacy.

So an alternative was needed. The black box phone came about to fill that need – and its clunky design is a feature, not a bug:

The black-box phone, by contrast, was a happy medium that posed threats to community members’ social and spiritual health.

Its design reflects that: The phone is an intentionally bulked-up contraption that enables mobile communications from a vehicle but is highly inconvenient to carry. It only allows public, audible conversations — no texting or internet access. It is also shared among the crew members.

Ministers in the settlement hoped that adopting these devices would make individual cell phone ownership among their constituents unnecessary.

No word on who actually invented it among the Amish, or if it perhaps arose in different areas on the same timeline more-or-less.

So it is a basic communication device which strips out the higher-tech aspects that enable unfiltered internet access and discreet messaging.

As noted, it’s also bulky, which makes it conspicuous, unlike an easily-pocketed smartphone or cell phone. So it’s obvious to others who is using it, when, and for how long. The fact that it’s a shared device fits Amish ideals of community and discourages it being used in ways the church might frown upon.

Workarounds And The “Tech-Agnostic” Amish

This is just one example of a number of workarounds employed by the Amish to get benefits from technology while respecting at least the letter of the law.

Others we’ve looked at lately include the long-running “Plain computers“, or even an unconventional way to use Chat GPT. Another Ems describes in the piece would be fax machine printed emails.

Ems makes a bigger point in this piece which is worth underscoring: that the Amish are not technophobic, but rather “technology-agnostic” as she puts it:

They do not care much about what a new technology is or how it works; they care about what its adoption would mean for the surrounding community.

I recommend reading the piece in whole, but I want to leave this by sharing Ems’ closing paragraph, which directs us to where we might take some wisdom from what’s behind those odd Amish workarounds like the black box and plain computer:

Technology can be greatly empowering, but it’s important to remember that the social arrangements — that is, the white space around new tech — should always take at least equal focus.

A collective approach to determining how things like smartphones, social media, and AI should be used is a step toward resisting their deleterious effects on our mental and social well-being, which we often only appreciate after the fact.

We should strive — perhaps not unlike the Amish — to accept only the advances that meaningfully improve our lives, while negotiating those that erode the practices, beliefs, and relationships that make life worth living.

Worth pondering, and even putting into practice where you can.

See More:

• Amish On Using High Tech: “Out of Sight” and “Respectfully”
• The Amish & Technology: Why They Restrict It
• Are the Amish Hypocrites?
• Digital Detox: 7 Ways the Amish Harness Tech
• “An Amishman’s Guide To Computer Lingo”