I've had a similar approach for the past few months, but with some changes:
- I have my wife manage restrictions; only she knows the passcode
- I have Safari set to only a whitelist. This means when friends send me a link, I've got to get to a computer to open it.
- I have no access to "unlimited" content: no app store, no news aggregators, no google
- My home screen has primarily utility and "creation" apps (Drafts, Day One, Trello, etc)
- I've turned off almost all notifications. Mail has no sounds, alerts, or badges. I do have badges and alerts on text messaging and slack, but am probably going to turn off slack notification completely.
- I've yet to remove all games. I should. I've yet to remove Hacker News and Tech Crunch, but don't currently feel an incessant need to check those.
Dumber phone
81–90 of 347 posts
Re: Dumber phone
#82This is already being built from a company with a similar vision : Lite Phone https://www.thelightphone.com/ Lite Phone 2: Campaign https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/light-phone-2-design#/
I'd like to try this DIY "Pyboard based GSM phone":
Re: Dumber phone
#83I just got a Pixel the other day after being phone-less for about 3 months. I only need it to do ARCore development, so I keep it powered-off. * I had to print out directions to get to new places, which had me learn my way around. * People were much less flaky since they couldn't text me at the last minute to cancel our plans. * I no longer had a crutch in difficult social situations, which helped me actually get to…
I respect what you're doing, but I noticed it's the friends like you (off Facebook, never answers texts) that stopped getting invited to stuff. Scenario 1: housewarming party 3 weeks away. My phoneless friend doesn't get the Facebook invite used to corrall the other 30 people coming. She also doesn't get the group FB message (nobody uses group SMS anymore in my friend group). A fluke of busyness means I don't see her…
I'm having the weird experience of being the first grade level through a new high school.
One nice thing about that is there's no one older than us already using Facebook. Everything that needs to be organized is done through email, which is boring to some, but at least everyone has it.
At the start of the school year I got a few friends to switch over to Telegram (for group chats). I would have prefered something end to end encrypted and decentralized, but at least it's not Facebook Messenger. Some people do use Instagram (Facebook-for-Pictures) and Snapchat, but it's not anywhere near universal.
So I'm set on my phone with only my self hosted email and Telegram. Not sure how I'm going to deal with things after school, but hopefully people switch off Facebook by then.
Re: Dumber phone
#84I really recommend unplugging for a few days. It helps you notice how you are interacting with technology. I spent 4 days on a tiny island (population 11) a few years ago. I was there with one friend and we decided that there would be no screens and no watches/clocks for the whole time. You very quickly adjust to not having it. Easily within a day. We ate when we got up, and then again later on. We went to sleep soon…
It doesn't even have to be that extreme. Go camping, or even for a hike for a few hours. Just take some time on the reg to disconnect.
I agree there's benefit in smaller disconnections. But taking a full week off from something produces a qualitatively different change for me. A month, even more.
I'm a life-long atheist, but in the last few years I've really come to understand why Sabbaths and Lent are things that have been sustained over millennia. There's a lot of introspective value in giving things up.
Re: Dumber phone
#85Personally, I find my smartphone addiction gets worse when I turn off all notifications. Because then FOMO takes over and I spend tons of time digging into apps to make sure I didn't "miss anything". For me, it works much better to intentionally choose the notifications I get to be the things I really want to be interrupted by. I wish there were an AI or human secretary who could make those judgements on a per-notifi…
Not for me. However I seem to differ from may orhers who agree with you that I am not curious enough to miss the kitten posted next door nor the fancy meal plate of random strangers, intermingled by advertisment or is it already the other way round?
Without these notifications I stay more focused and get less stressed.
Re: Dumber phone
#86One huge distraction-enabler is the fingerprint sensor. It makes things too easy for me - I put my hand in my pocket, put my finger on the sensor, and by the time it's in front of my face I can be mindlessly browsing reddit. So I would add the following tip: disable the fingerprint sensor if you have one (also face recognition, etc), and replace it with an inconveniently long password. This way you really need to thi…
Reddit, the serial time-killer. Removing it from my phone was a tangible life improvement. And on desktop, I've moved everything to multis so that my reddit homepage is empty like a desert, so that I have to choose what to see purposefully from the sidebar. Thus I don't compulsively go to reddit and get lured by a sea of interesting links. This has helped cut the time I spend on reddit by, well IDK, I don't spend more than about an hour or two a week on it anymore.
Re: Dumber phone
#87This is already being built from a company with a similar vision : Lite Phone https://www.thelightphone.com/ Lite Phone 2: Campaign https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/light-phone-2-design#/
Check out Siempo (www.getsiempo.com) - it's basically a software version of the Light Phone 2 (for Android only now). We believe the launcher approach is the most effective way to solve the problem b/c it actually gets at the root cause, which is that the smartphone interface has no protections against the persuasive techniques of addictive apps. So we made a new interface that is less distracting and more intentiona…
I love the idea but it needs way too many permissions. How do you guys make money?
Re: Dumber phone
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
>no attention slot machines I lived in the time when slot machines were standing on the street in the open in Russia, and yes, mentally infirm people were wasting themselves on them. Normal people not. It takes a particular lack of basic logical reasoning to not to understand that the the purpose of a bling bling slot machine is to waste time and money. It takes a particular lack of basic logical reasoning to not to…
> I lived in the time when slot machines were standing on the street in the open in Russia, and yes, mentally infirm people were wasting themselves on them. Normal people not. Plenty of "normal people," even intelligent ones, are addicted to smartphones (though the degree of addiction varies). Smartphone slot machines are subtle enough to snare people would wouldn't be taken in by a traditional slot machine, even tho…
>you're labeling a ridiculously large fraction of the population as "mentally infirm."
Well, to me it feels that people from parts of the world where one has no state institutes to fend them, tend to have more acute sense for somebody trying to abuse, fraud or attempt to extract money from them. Other than "pocket slot machines," people living there have to care about many more malignities: black mackler trying to steal your granny's apartment, bizarre religious sects trying to encroach your children, impunous sexual maniac killers on every corner, are things an average individual have to care, other than "relatively innocuous" encounters with regular racketeering/extortion/fraud.
A mentally firm person can not only tell that "wasting himself in a slot machines parlor is bad because I've been told to," but to reason that by himself about whatever malevolent encroachment on their wallet/assets/mental wellbeing/social position.
To a very average proletarian parent in Russia or China, and likely in much of the world outside of nanny state countries, it is glaringly obvious that Goog runs an equivalent of a slot machine business. And they take a 100% right conscious decision to block apps and google pay on their children smartphones.
Why an "enlightened, intelligent Western person" doesn't do the same? Were they desensitized by decades of wellbeing to the real, tangible threat of social predation?
Re: Dumber phone
#89Personally, I find my smartphone addiction gets worse when I turn off all notifications. Because then FOMO takes over and I spend tons of time digging into apps to make sure I didn't "miss anything". For me, it works much better to intentionally choose the notifications I get to be the things I really want to be interrupted by. I wish there were an AI or human secretary who could make those judgements on a per-notifi…
Not for me. However I seem to differ from may orhers who agree with you that I am not curious enough to miss the kitten posted next door nor the fancy meal plate of random strangers, intermingled by advertisment or is it already the other way round? Without these notifications I stay more focused and get less stressed.
Same here. I don't need a notification for every single "like" I get on Twitter/Instagram. In fact, it's similarly rewarding when I come back to the app and see a bunch of notifications waiting, knowing that they didn't distract me.
Re: Dumber phone
#90I just got a Pixel the other day after being phone-less for about 3 months. I only need it to do ARCore development, so I keep it powered-off. * I had to print out directions to get to new places, which had me learn my way around. * People were much less flaky since they couldn't text me at the last minute to cancel our plans. * I no longer had a crutch in difficult social situations, which helped me actually get to…
I respect what you're doing, but I noticed it's the friends like you (off Facebook, never answers texts) that stopped getting invited to stuff. Scenario 1: housewarming party 3 weeks away. My phoneless friend doesn't get the Facebook invite used to corrall the other 30 people coming. She also doesn't get the group FB message (nobody uses group SMS anymore in my friend group). A fluke of busyness means I don't see her…
Agreed, 100%, on live and let live.
I'll never force anyone to get a phone, smartphone, use texts, or whatever, but for the people who are that disconnected, well, they add a friction to social interaction that ends up excluding them.
At the end of the day they're outside my own set of social norms, which now, in 2018, include "must be relatively easy to connect with".
Times have changed.