I'm considering ditching my iPhone and deleting all major social media accounts cold turkey, but am wondering if this will have any unintended negative effects.
Anyone doing this already? What's it like?
Ask HN: What's it like to not own a smartphone?
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's it like to not own a smartphone?
#2[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What's it like to not own a smartphone?
#3I ditched my cell phone a while ago. Your mileage may vary, but if your friends/employer are prepared to communicate with you without the use of any sort of mobile device, it's really nice.
Re: Ask HN: What's it like to not own a smartphone?
#4I have never had a mobile phone.
No issues.
I do have a Samsung Galaxy tablet that I use for reading.
Re: Ask HN: What's it like to not own a smartphone?
#5I have not had a problem.
Re: Ask HN: What's it like to not own a smartphone?
#6Have never had a mobile phone. I rely on FB for chatting with friends around the world, so wouldn't want to lose that, although I quite often have breaks from there for months. I communicate with FB and email, and in person. Hard to say "what it's like"..
Re: Ask HN: What's it like to not own a smartphone?
#7Have never had a mobile phone. I rely on FB for chatting with friends around the world, so wouldn't want to lose that, although I quite often have breaks from there for months. I communicate with FB and email, and in person. Hard to say "what it's like"..
> Hard to say "what it's like"..
Are you ever excluded or written off as crazy for going phoneless?
Re: Ask HN: What's it like to not own a smartphone?
#8It's amazing. It can be difficult at times, mostly due to peer pressure, but I think that part of what's great about it is that it flexes your resisting-peer-pressure muscles.
Re: Ask HN: What's it like to not own a smartphone?
#9I deleted Facebook cold turkey. I don’t regret it at all. I still enjoy Instagram. I find the ads on Instagram very relevant and sometimes find cool new things there (I enjoy everyday carry/outdoorsy topics). I think I’ll probably delete Instagram in a year or two though, I don’t think Facebook will maintain it well.
Twitter would be the hardest for me to let go. I enjoy seeing posts from friends, developers, journalists, and comedians there. Using Jumbo app to prune any tweets older than a month helps me feel like it’s less a permanent record on myself.
And finally, the tech I’m most worried about keeping but can’t really let go of because of family and friends is WhatsApp. They’ll have to make money with it one day and all the pressure from other governments to decrypt seems like it might hit a breaking point for them.
Re: Ask HN: What's it like to not own a smartphone?
#10I don't have any friends and all I do is program so it's pretty good.