Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dumber phone

nomasters.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 347 posts

Re: Dumber phone

#171

Post by 24gttghh »

jpfed wrote: post #22
cdnsteve wrote: post #11

This 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 really like the Lite Phone idea; browsers and the vast majority of apps are distractions. But an integrated camera is not a distraction; it's a tremendously convenient feature!

$150 for a device that only makes calls seems pretty inconvenient too. It should be Edit: I say should; I should clarify that I think the pricepoint is waaay to hipster for me.

Re: Dumber phone

#172

Post by michrassena »

It's been less than five years since I switched to a smart phone. If I wanted to go back to a distraction free device, I would buy a pay-as-you-go dumb phone, and that would be that. Another option is a cell plan without data. I think it's easier to cut out the functionality altogether rather than trying to let a few things through without opening the floodgates.

Re: Dumber phone

#173

Post by sattoshi »

peacetreefrog wrote: post #125

There are a lot of "hacks" in this thread (put your phone in grayscale, put variable reward apps in a folder, turn off fingerprint sensor) but in my experience the mindset is by far the most important part. What's worked for me (and the article talks about this too) is viewing my phone as a tool with a limited set of functionality. For me, that functionality is: calls, texts, Google maps, Spotify, Audible, podcasts,…

I read this waiting at a bus stop, going to put it away now and enjoy the weather.

Re: Dumber phone

#174

Post by citruscomputing »

wpietri wrote: post #77
yosito wrote: post #27

Personally, 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…

Let me ask the crowd. Would you use a browser plugin that eliminates newsfeeds? One of the things I struggle with is the endless novelty of a newsfeed. I can always scroll and get more. And then I can reload for another chance at finding something interesting. There are extensions that do this for Facebook alone, but I was thinking something more general. And something that's also clever about eliminating the way com…

You might like the chrome extension "Delayed Gratification"[0]. I also use xTab[1] to limit my tab count to about 6 to prevent opening every link I come across. (The interesting ones go into my OneTab[2] to alleviate FOMO and so I know I can find them later, although I rarely need to.)

[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/delayed-gratificat...

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xtab/amddgdnlkmoha...

[2] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbo...

Re: Dumber phone

#175

Post by keriati1 »

peacetreefrog wrote: post #125

There are a lot of "hacks" in this thread (put your phone in grayscale, put variable reward apps in a folder, turn off fingerprint sensor) but in my experience the mindset is by far the most important part. What's worked for me (and the article talks about this too) is viewing my phone as a tool with a limited set of functionality. For me, that functionality is: calls, texts, Google maps, Spotify, Audible, podcasts,…

I started something like this 4 months ago:

- I only removed social media

- and turned off every notification, leaving badges for company email.

This made already a huge difference. Some of the points are also not relevant for me (never had games or so...)

Re: Dumber phone

#176

Post by skellera »

driverdan wrote: post #147
yosito wrote: post #27

Personally, 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…

> Because then FOMO takes over This is the real problem, not the phone or its apps. You need to eliminate FOMO from your life. You'll be much happier for it. I don't have a recommendation on how to do that. For me I came to the realization and acceptance that there is always more. More work, more knowledge, more news, more parties, more potential friends, more opportunities, etc. It never ends and it's impossible to…

Meditation is good for this. Being aware of those thoughts and understanding why you feel it can help lessen the addiction. You may even find out you don’t care but you’ve trained yourself to. Everyone’s different but I think meditation can help some aspect of their life.

Re: Dumber phone

#177

Post by soupflavor »

sattoshi wrote: post #173
peacetreefrog wrote: post #125

There are a lot of "hacks" in this thread (put your phone in grayscale, put variable reward apps in a folder, turn off fingerprint sensor) but in my experience the mindset is by far the most important part. What's worked for me (and the article talks about this too) is viewing my phone as a tool with a limited set of functionality. For me, that functionality is: calls, texts, Google maps, Spotify, Audible, podcasts,…

I read this waiting at a bus stop, going to put it away now and enjoy the weather.

huzzah! Witness granted; reward++

Re: Dumber phone

#179

Post by taserian »

procparam wrote: post #19

One 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…

I have a small velvet bag that I use to keep my cell phone safe from scratches in my pocket. You can keep the fingerprint sensor on, but drop it in a similar bag with the sensor at the bottom; that way, you keep the fingerprint security, but there's an extra step involved before you can use it.

Re: Dumber phone

#180

Post by dasyatidprime »

driverdan wrote: post #147
yosito wrote: post #27

Personally, 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…

> Because then FOMO takes over This is the real problem, not the phone or its apps. You need to eliminate FOMO from your life. You'll be much happier for it. I don't have a recommendation on how to do that. For me I came to the realization and acceptance that there is always more. More work, more knowledge, more news, more parties, more potential friends, more opportunities, etc. It never ends and it's impossible to…

You'll be much happier for it, but can you afford it?

If you've got the kind of social life and communication you need, great. And I agree that many people who are in an accidental too-much-FOMO situation probably didn't need all the extra tweets and whatnot flung their way and it's mostly junk. In that case, just turning most of it off is a reasonable idea.

But if you're in a position where the communities you need to be making more of an effort with use fast-moving, presenceless platforms for most of their socialization (Telegram, Twitter, etc.—maybe even, say, Slack?), good luck snagging those limited opportunities to learn which people to get to know better or get a word in on something important without constantly checking everything. (This might be a good argument to not do that for your next community!)

The idea of more closely regulating the feeling so that it's not overdriven and occupying your whole mindset is still relevant, but it takes on quite a different form if you can't actually afford to check out of the fast side; you have to do a trickier balancing act.

Post reply on HN