Spent all of 2021 using only an Alcatel “dumb phone”. It had an 8gb memory card for music, picked up FM radio, and had alarms and (very) basic internet access good enough to skim Wikipedia.
The thing that made me go back to a “smart” phone was that it was completely useless for group texts. If there was a dumb phone with better MMS support (and maybe a few other chat apps) I would go back instantly.
If you're in the US, check out the Sunbeam F1[0]. It has good MMS support, emojis, and the best T9 I've used on a phone. The OS is a stripped-down version of Android with absolutely no social media apps or web access. It's a little spendy but worth every penny.
I have been using the light phone 2 (https://www.thelightphone.com/) for the last year. I chose it specifically because it had group messaging support and nothing else really. I do use the music player on it sometimes when jogging. It might be a good option for you if group text is all you want. Anyhow, I'm starting to look for alternatives because it can't really handle image messages, and so many people communicate using pictures that it started to get quite frustrating being unable to understand what they were trying to send me. The JMP chat thing seems pretty interesting.
Most of these 'issues' are not with phones themselves, but just personal discipline and habits. Not to say they're not real problems, though.
However, having world-brains in our pocket isn't just quality of life and convenience any more - it's become foundational and isn't going away soon. Reliance on them is only going to increase as time goes on. (Until they are replaced by something even more powerful and useful)
I admit fully that the erosion of privacy is a problem, but it's one that we're just going to have to deal with IMO. It's the cost of being a part of modern civilization. If you want to live in the middle of some woods on your own water and power, fine. Otherwise, I'd say you just need to deal with it.
I share the same mindset. I think that even though you'll eliminate distarctions from your phone there's no way you can eliminate every other form of distraction, no matter if it's comming from the digital world or somewhere else. You just have to adapt your brain to it. It's like the system, as some wise person once said - stupid people hate it, the smart use it for their advantage.
Obesity can universally be resolved by eating less, a matter of discipline and habits. And yet it has increased everywhere! Have people become less disciplined or has the world become better at undermining our discipline?
Does it really make sense to assign individual blame to a universal phenomenon? We didn't blame the weakness of individuals for the public health issues surrounding cigarettes. We banned children from using them and put warning labels on every pack.
Where is the line that separates individual responsibility and culture from the responsibilities of governments? I don't know. It's very fuzzy. There's a mountain of good data, advice, and substitutes that can let someone eat healthy and avoid obesity. The resources and help are out there - yet obesity happens regardless. Can it really be said to be the fault of the whole?
Just because the problem is widespread doesn't mean it's not individual responsibility.
As for phones, that's more complicated. There's less clear-cut about how best to tackle those problems compared to obesity.
Who cares where you draw the line. Do you care about outcomes?
Blaming obesity on individual responsibility has not worked to lower occurrence and morbidity.
If this is an area you're actually working on, you can ride a high horse about how it's individual responsibility, but you'll have to work on systems if you want the numbers to come down.
If you're a disinterested party that just wants to judge people, think whatever you want.
> it's become foundational and isn't going away soon.
It's not foundational yet, at least in the parts of the US I go to. Being without a smartphone is occasionally less convenient, of course, but it's hardly a serious impediment.
In the future? Who knows. I can see a day when I may have to carry a burner smartphone that is only brought out and powered on to do the occasional important thing.
If you want to have a phone available anytime, you are better off having a cellphone that you can turn ON then having to look for a pay phone (those are mostly gone).
I don't have a cell phone, because I consider that the costs outweigh the benefits. Recently I started experiencing more often the effects of people assuming that everybody has a cell phone.
* I couldn't scan QR codes at restaurants to see the menu, after the pandemic. The server was able to find an old paper menu but warned me that prices had changed, and I had to order without seeing the new prices. This is less of a problem now as most restaurants went back to paper menus.
* My place of work recently installed 2FA that assumes we are always near a phone, and they don't want to provide an alternative such as a yubikey, so I cannot log on to the network unless I'm at my office or at home (where I have a landline).
* I use a car-sharing service and they want to switch to an "app-only" system for booking cars, which I guess will require me to install some kind of Android virtual machine on my computer.
Truth be told, those are minor annoyances in the grand scheme of things.
> My place of work recently installed 2FA that assumes we are always near a phone, and they don't want to provide an alternative such as a yubikey, so I cannot log on to the network unless I'm at my office or at home (where I have a landline).
That's over the line regardless. If work wants to use a phone, they can provide a phone.
Given how glacially many companies move, especially small-med companies outside of tech hotspots, they would probably rather fire OP than add a cell phone reimbursement plan to their pay.
Of course, only after having established evidence against the individual which speaks to the actual reason they were fired; they wouldn't want employment regulators to get the impression that the termination of employment was in retaliation to these valid complaints.
More seriously, if one wants to make a stink about this sort of policy, this is what they need to worry about. I don't want to tell someone they're wrong for choosing not to worry about this and, in OP's case, accept the inconvenience of using a landline for 2FA.
They skipped right over getting a dumbphone or a crippled Android device.
I drive a 30 year old car through the southwest US. I'm resourceful, but I'm not careless. I'll continue to carry a phone in case of breakdowns.
A few years ago my checking account was drained while I was on vacation. It was pretty nice having a phone with a cell number that matched what was registered with my bank.
...
Delete social media off your phone. A smartphone without social media is a tool. A smartphone with social media is a prison.
Getting a dumbphones is also way more cost effective. I just tried to look up the cost. For the first year, getting a landline would cost me $575. Use the landline at work... They give us cellphones, no landline and there are no payphone anymore.
If you like using wired telephones but don't want to pay landline rates, you have a few options:
- Use an analog telephony adapter (ATA) to connect your telephone to a SIP VoIP service. There are plenty of providers, and service is dirt cheap.
- Get a telephone with something like Link2Cell, and connect it to your cellphone via Bluetooth. You can now use the telephone to make calls through your cellphone.
- Similarly, if you don't want to buy a new telephone, get an adapter like an XLink BT, which lets you do the same thing using your existing telephone.
- Use a fixed wireless terminal (FWT) to connect your telephone to cellular service directly. The FWT will accept a SIM card. (This might not be an option anymore though, since these tend to operate on GSM networks.)
I love dumbphones and I used to carry one until ~2 years ago, but it's increasingly untenable due to whatsapp. Couldn't care less about anything else. (perhaps an alarm clock? but even the dumbest of dumbphones has that)
Not only Whatsapp. Banks in a number of countries are getting rid of passwords, SMS 2FA, or code cards for their online banking. Instead, you either have to use their phone app for online banking, or you have to use the phone app as the second factor for logging into online banking through the browser. A dumbphone won’t suffice.
> A smartphone without social media is a tool. A smartphone with social media is a prison.
Smartphones are a dopamine feed regardless. I got a modern Android smartphone only after deleting my Facebook account some years ago, and I have no other social media. I still find myself doomscrolling the news on the phone, to the point where I was no longer reading literature or simply thinking my thoughts. I had to make a rule that at home, my phone would never leave the kitchen.
Exactly this. I'm running a de-googled Android device without any social media on it. Sure it's not as convenient, but I find myself with all the benefits outlined by the first paragraph of that article, with the extra tools that help make my life easier.
For example, my sense of orientation got a lot better but I'd be doing myself a disservice not to use OSM in a city I'm not familiar with. The slow loading and time for the GPS to lock on makes it more of a "only if necessary" use, I mostly end up asking for directions or figuring out my own way via public maps, I enjoy that more.
I have an iPhone 13 mini and I think it's really the perfect smartphone for me. I like the size and shape and I appreciate the overall build quality. But I keep it pretty minimal: I only use the phone, SMS, and occasionally Apple Maps. And the only apps I have installed are Apple Music Classical and Google Auth. No email app either, though I'll install the HEY.com app when I'm traveling. I use the privacy restrictions to disable almost everything including the camera, podcasts, Safari, Health, Siri, etc. I use iCloud to sync my contacts and that's it.
The last phone I had before this one was an iPhone 8, and before that an iPhone 5—both setup in the same way. I've never used my phone for entertainment or for socialization. It's always been a tool and I think it's better this way.
> Delete social media off your phone. A smartphone without social media is a tool. A smartphone with social media is a prison.
Removed Instagram, Reddit, Twitter. Phone has an RSS reader, a browser, messaging apps and (lots of) mapping apps. Could not be happier. I pick it up on purpose, otherwise it sits there. Battery lasts way longer. I don't care about it and sometimes I forget where it is until it rings. True bliss.
That hasn't been my experience. For me the problem is the habit of opening up the phone and scrolling whenever I'm not immediately engaged in something else. It's not driven by notifications. I would happily uninstall the browser if Android would let me tbh
Good advice. Early this morning I installed Safari extension on my iPad and iPhone that blocks those annoying “install our app” and “use our app” banners on web sites. Not having any social media apps installed makes me feel better about using my devices and not seeing those annoying nag banners keeps me calm
I get some real value from social media, but I like to severely limit my time.
Services like Apple Screen time to see how much time you loses every week help a lot. The Freedom.to service (and their web blog and podcasts) is also a great resource.
I'm thinking of getting an apple watch with the cell phone. It's not usable for web surfing and other addictions, but it still has phone, messages, and maps, which are what I really can't do without.
I looked into this, more as a curiosity. The thing that killed it for me is the battery life. Unless your usage is already very low, I expect you'd end up charging it more than once a day which for me was prohibitive.
As a user and proponent of free software, articles like this are why most people don’t take the free software movement seriously.
Their suggestion to give up your cell phone and find a landline or pay phone instead makes this sound hopelessly out of touch. A tablet connected to WiFi making VOIP calls is at least a cumbersome solution unlike a walkie-talkie!
This is not a traditional article. The LibrePlanet wiki is a public wiki where anyone can post pages related to software freedom. This is a public post edited by several people. https://libreplanet.org/wiki?title=Going_NoPhone&action=hist... You can make an account and change the content.
When it comes to "making phone calls," good luck trying to get anyone to pick up the call. With the rampant prevalence of scams and telemarketing, unless you are in a circle of like-minded individuals, these mysterious calls are likely to be ignored.
While ultimately, adopting this lifestyle is a personal choice, it is inevitable that it inconveniences the people around them and complicates things.
I indirectly know someone like this, who can only be reached via landline, has no email or mobile phone, and asks others to print photos for them, among other things.
Some individuals may be understanding and accommodating, but I can see how others may engage with you less, especially if you make this transition suddenly.
I believe that unless you are willing to make significant sacrifices within your circle of contacts, this may not be a viable option. Unless you know someone who is already living this lifestyle or is willing to join you in this change, it could be challenging.
I'm not going to argue with the creed or the idea. I'm just going to note that replacing your phone, as per their page, replaces one brick of glass with:
- Pen & Paper
- Flashlight
- MP3 Player
- Camera
- Watch
- Paper / Laminated Maps (arguably, a boring GPS could replace this)
Not listed, but they also replace:
- Audio Recorder
- Radio (news, weather, emergency alerts)
- Magnifying glass/binoculars
- Compass (To go with the maps, especially if you don't use a standalone GPS device)
- Calculator (arguably not necessary, agreed)
- Measuring tape
- Fidget Toy
It's always fascinating to me how much a smartphone phone saves us from carrying.
EDIT: If your goal is to reduce how much your phone can interrupt you or demand your attention, might I suggest turning off all (ALL all) notifications. It's a lot easier to be intentional about your phone use when it can't make a grab for your attention.
There is a joke about how Seinfeld would have no conflict if everyone had phones.
Everything mentioned makes life harder, waste more time, and cause confusion.
Since having kids/hitting my 30s, I've been uninterested in social media(on my phone). I'm so bad about checking my phone, I might wake up in the morning and see I've had a missed text message from 7:30pm.
Regarding the OPs mental state... uninstall those apps?
51 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 98.4 ms ] threadThe thing that made me go back to a “smart” phone was that it was completely useless for group texts. If there was a dumb phone with better MMS support (and maybe a few other chat apps) I would go back instantly.
[0] https://sunbeamwireless.com/
However, having world-brains in our pocket isn't just quality of life and convenience any more - it's become foundational and isn't going away soon. Reliance on them is only going to increase as time goes on. (Until they are replaced by something even more powerful and useful)
I admit fully that the erosion of privacy is a problem, but it's one that we're just going to have to deal with IMO. It's the cost of being a part of modern civilization. If you want to live in the middle of some woods on your own water and power, fine. Otherwise, I'd say you just need to deal with it.
IMO that's a limited way to look at it.
Sin occurs at the intersection of desire and opportunity. One is easy to change, the other is hard.
Obesity can universally be resolved by eating less, a matter of discipline and habits. And yet it has increased everywhere! Have people become less disciplined or has the world become better at undermining our discipline?
Does it really make sense to assign individual blame to a universal phenomenon? We didn't blame the weakness of individuals for the public health issues surrounding cigarettes. We banned children from using them and put warning labels on every pack.
Where is the line that separates individual responsibility and culture from the responsibilities of governments? I don't know. It's very fuzzy. There's a mountain of good data, advice, and substitutes that can let someone eat healthy and avoid obesity. The resources and help are out there - yet obesity happens regardless. Can it really be said to be the fault of the whole?
Just because the problem is widespread doesn't mean it's not individual responsibility.
As for phones, that's more complicated. There's less clear-cut about how best to tackle those problems compared to obesity.
Blaming obesity on individual responsibility has not worked to lower occurrence and morbidity.
If this is an area you're actually working on, you can ride a high horse about how it's individual responsibility, but you'll have to work on systems if you want the numbers to come down.
If you're a disinterested party that just wants to judge people, think whatever you want.
It's not foundational yet, at least in the parts of the US I go to. Being without a smartphone is occasionally less convenient, of course, but it's hardly a serious impediment.
In the future? Who knows. I can see a day when I may have to carry a burner smartphone that is only brought out and powered on to do the occasional important thing.
* I couldn't scan QR codes at restaurants to see the menu, after the pandemic. The server was able to find an old paper menu but warned me that prices had changed, and I had to order without seeing the new prices. This is less of a problem now as most restaurants went back to paper menus.
* My place of work recently installed 2FA that assumes we are always near a phone, and they don't want to provide an alternative such as a yubikey, so I cannot log on to the network unless I'm at my office or at home (where I have a landline).
* I use a car-sharing service and they want to switch to an "app-only" system for booking cars, which I guess will require me to install some kind of Android virtual machine on my computer.
Truth be told, those are minor annoyances in the grand scheme of things.
That's over the line regardless. If work wants to use a phone, they can provide a phone.
More seriously, if one wants to make a stink about this sort of policy, this is what they need to worry about. I don't want to tell someone they're wrong for choosing not to worry about this and, in OP's case, accept the inconvenience of using a landline for 2FA.
QR code menus are bad enough. Worse is outsourced QR code menus that try to force you through an onboarding process so they can spam you.
https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html
I drive a 30 year old car through the southwest US. I'm resourceful, but I'm not careless. I'll continue to carry a phone in case of breakdowns.
A few years ago my checking account was drained while I was on vacation. It was pretty nice having a phone with a cell number that matched what was registered with my bank.
...
Delete social media off your phone. A smartphone without social media is a tool. A smartphone with social media is a prison.
Just get a dumbphone and leave it at home.
- Use an analog telephony adapter (ATA) to connect your telephone to a SIP VoIP service. There are plenty of providers, and service is dirt cheap.
- Get a telephone with something like Link2Cell, and connect it to your cellphone via Bluetooth. You can now use the telephone to make calls through your cellphone.
- Similarly, if you don't want to buy a new telephone, get an adapter like an XLink BT, which lets you do the same thing using your existing telephone.
- Use a fixed wireless terminal (FWT) to connect your telephone to cellular service directly. The FWT will accept a SIM card. (This might not be an option anymore though, since these tend to operate on GSM networks.)
Smartphones are a dopamine feed regardless. I got a modern Android smartphone only after deleting my Facebook account some years ago, and I have no other social media. I still find myself doomscrolling the news on the phone, to the point where I was no longer reading literature or simply thinking my thoughts. I had to make a rule that at home, my phone would never leave the kitchen.
For example, my sense of orientation got a lot better but I'd be doing myself a disservice not to use OSM in a city I'm not familiar with. The slow loading and time for the GPS to lock on makes it more of a "only if necessary" use, I mostly end up asking for directions or figuring out my own way via public maps, I enjoy that more.
The last phone I had before this one was an iPhone 8, and before that an iPhone 5—both setup in the same way. I've never used my phone for entertainment or for socialization. It's always been a tool and I think it's better this way.
Wendell Berry, The Vacation (1994):
Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his video camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation. He showed
his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,
preserving it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat
behind which he stood with his camera
preserving his vacation even as he was having it
so that after he had had it he would still
have it. It would be there. With a flick
of a switch, there it would be. But he
would not be in it. He would never be in it.
Then came the selfie stick.
They got you covered:
> If you have a bank account, there may be a public phone at a branch that you can use.
/s
Removed Instagram, Reddit, Twitter. Phone has an RSS reader, a browser, messaging apps and (lots of) mapping apps. Could not be happier. I pick it up on purpose, otherwise it sits there. Battery lasts way longer. I don't care about it and sometimes I forget where it is until it rings. True bliss.
Given that all social media sites can be accessed through the browser, I don't see how deleting the apps makes that much difference.
I get some real value from social media, but I like to severely limit my time.
Services like Apple Screen time to see how much time you loses every week help a lot. The Freedom.to service (and their web blog and podcasts) is also a great resource.
Anyone tried this?
You don't need the iPhone on your person when you have the cellular version of the watch, but you'd still need to own one.
Their suggestion to give up your cell phone and find a landline or pay phone instead makes this sound hopelessly out of touch. A tablet connected to WiFi making VOIP calls is at least a cumbersome solution unlike a walkie-talkie!
I indirectly know someone like this, who can only be reached via landline, has no email or mobile phone, and asks others to print photos for them, among other things.
Some individuals may be understanding and accommodating, but I can see how others may engage with you less, especially if you make this transition suddenly.
I believe that unless you are willing to make significant sacrifices within your circle of contacts, this may not be a viable option. Unless you know someone who is already living this lifestyle or is willing to join you in this change, it could be challenging.
I’m all for people ensuring their privacy and moving away from proprietary software, but the alternatives given come across as too idealist.
- Pen & Paper
- Flashlight
- MP3 Player
- Camera
- Watch
- Paper / Laminated Maps (arguably, a boring GPS could replace this)
Not listed, but they also replace:
- Audio Recorder
- Radio (news, weather, emergency alerts)
- Magnifying glass/binoculars
- Compass (To go with the maps, especially if you don't use a standalone GPS device)
- Calculator (arguably not necessary, agreed)
- Measuring tape
- Fidget Toy
It's always fascinating to me how much a smartphone phone saves us from carrying.
EDIT: If your goal is to reduce how much your phone can interrupt you or demand your attention, might I suggest turning off all (ALL all) notifications. It's a lot easier to be intentional about your phone use when it can't make a grab for your attention.
Everything mentioned makes life harder, waste more time, and cause confusion.
Since having kids/hitting my 30s, I've been uninterested in social media(on my phone). I'm so bad about checking my phone, I might wake up in the morning and see I've had a missed text message from 7:30pm.
Regarding the OPs mental state... uninstall those apps?