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A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

nytimes.com

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Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#5

I feel like i would like a phone with the sim and wifi module ripped out. Perhaps just bluetooth so my files can get auto transfered when i get home. Phones are great note takers and recorders but the social media and communication aspects can be problematic.

Get a tape recorder and the Remarkable or whatever that ink tablet is, and a dumb flip phone? Or the Nokia brick remake.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#6
It is unfortunate that the phone hardware companies have an interest in you using their phone more, otherwise they'd make it easier to manage your phone usage better. The screentime app in iPhone for example is so easy to bypass as a user even when you were the one who limited certain apps usage. I want an app that strictly locks away my access to an app and also suppresses notifications. Is that so hard to build?

It also needs to be a default functionality of browsers. The ability to limit time on websites.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#7
I just checked the Screen Time statistics, and my average daily screen time last week was 18 minutes, the week before that was 22 minutes. I've never been in danger of becoming addicted to smart phones, just like I've never been in danger of being addicted to alcohol or gambling: none of them really appeal to me that much. But there are plenty of things I know I am addicted to, and I'm pretty sure the way to treat that addiction is to address the underlying issue for which the addiction is a response or a coping mechanism. Not to buy something and then pat yourself on the back. I very strongly doubt that just buying a flip phone is going to fix it; sorry folks (seriously).

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#8

I feel like i would like a phone with the sim and wifi module ripped out. Perhaps just bluetooth so my files can get auto transfered when i get home. Phones are great note takers and recorders but the social media and communication aspects can be problematic.

>I feel like i would like a phone…but the communication aspects can be problematic.

That’s not a phone then. It’s a computer (?)

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#9
Last year I got all into trying to, idk what to call it, "un-tech" my life. I started excitedly telling my wife I was going to get a one of these dumb phones and start using it. The next day a broken car on an incline rolled back into my car damaging it. I had to pull out my smartphone document the whole thing with pictures. I got a whole "what would you do with your dumb phone" and dropped the whole thing.

There is probably a middle ground like this article suggests that's more realistic. Just take the addictive stuff off, control notifications, add timers, add friction where you can etc. Just leaving my facebook account logged out basically killed my random scrolling habit.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#10
I couldn't live without SMS and navigation, so I kept my smartphone and just disabled my browser and removed all social media apps. Occasionally I have to re-enable my browser to scan a QR code (including for parking as the article mentions), which annoyingly reminds me how to circumvent this restriction, but it hasn't really been a problem so far. I already had Kindle on my phone, and I also installed the Wikipedia app and Dropbox so I can quickly look up facts, browse articles, or read a book or paper when I have nothing else to do. The main effect is that I spend most time on my phone reading stuff I actually want to read instead of aimlessly browsing the web.
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