11–20 of 24 posts
I am already living this idea. I do not own a smartphone in 2020. It has been close to 2 months and i do not miss it. Once the lockdown is over, then the real test of how long i could resist the allure of smartphones would be evident.
People love to paint as dramatic, blog post-worthy challenges what are not particularly difficult things with a bit of creativity. Speaking from several months of personal experience, it's not hard to do.
I tried to do this not too long ago, but (at least in the US) all of the mobile networks are switching to LTE, and shutting down their 2G and 3G networks. I was unable to find any "dumb" phones with LTE support. The closest thing I found was some overpriced Android phone with most of the smartphone features stripped out.
A related approach: Have a smart phone, but leave it at home. I stopped my smart phone usage habits some years ago, but I find that I still "need" it for some specific 2FA apps, in particular banking. So I just keep it permanently sitting on my desk, silenced.
At least a few times a week I leave my phone at home for an extended period of at least 4 hours. I also always leave my phone at home if I have to run a small errand. Miraculously, my world somehow doesn't catch on fire if I don't have it on my person every waking minute.
If I do need to take it with me somewhere I often just leave it in my car or pack(on silent) and check it every couple hours.
If I have to be notified of something time sensitive, then and only then, I turn my watch's bluetooth on for as long as is required and turn it off once I get the all clear.
I'm not trying to be Luddite, I find my phone genuinely useful and value having a nice one, I just don't care to be shackled to it.
Added bonus: I'm never worried about the ever growing size of my phone because its rarely on my body, and I always get between 2-4 days of battery life.
I you don't want to/can't go cold turkey (like me) : You can achieve about 80-90% of what the author says by removing social media app and disabling WhatsApp notifications. Depending on the OS, you might be able to have "scheduled" notifications, too. I've been trying the former and I see quite a big difference in how I use my mobile :). End of the day, I realised that it is a tool which you can either control or get…
Hi, I'm the author of the article and would be happy to discuss further in case there are any comments or questions.
Almost any "home" contract is around 30-35 Euro/month, no matter the technology, ADSL or "fiber" (or radio) doesn't change much.
What is called "fiber" is NOT (with some exceptions in some parts of some cities) actual "fiber", but rather "fiber+copper", i.e. if you are within 100-400 meters from the telephone cabin/actual end of the fiber you are mostly fine, if you are more than 500 meters away, speed is far from the advertised one, if you are 1,200 meters or more there is no practical difference from "traditional" ADSL.
Everyone is trying to make people get their land line migrate to VOIP over the "fiber" with an actual reliability (and quality) of communication that is often more than terrible, unbearable.
And noone tells you that in case of a blackout (which can often happen in emergencies) a normal landline will still work 99.99% of times, whilst (obviously) the VOIP won't, unless maybe if you have your own power supply for the router.
The mentioned in the article operator (Fastweb) is only one among the several providers, from experience it is one of those that you cannot count on, in the sense that if you are lucky and their (your) connection works, it works, if for whatever reason it doesn't you won't ever be able to have them solve the problem.
Google authenticator, Okta Verify, Battle.net authenticator, ESET Secure Authentication and SecureAuth.
While I might be able to find an alternative for the Google authenticator on a dumb phone, I feel it's unlikely for the others.
My only problem dropping a smartphone has been there is no alternative for authenticators. I have a few authenticators including: Google authenticator, Okta Verify, Battle.net authenticator, ESET Secure Authentication and SecureAuth. While I might be able to find an alternative for the Google authenticator on a dumb phone, I feel it's unlikely for the others.