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Dumber phone

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Re: Dumber phone

#251

Post by baby »

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,…

> There are a lot of "hacks" in this thread but in my experience the mindset is by far the most important part

it's not easy changing your mindset, that's why hacks are here.

Re: Dumber phone

#253

Post by mozzarella »

oldsklgdfth wrote: post #206
mozzarella wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my dad decided to quit smoking, he didn't throw out the pack of cigarettes he was currently in the middle of. Instead, he put them up on the shelf next to his work desk. The pack wasn't totally in his face, nor was it out of sight. Despite the visual reminder being present, he broke his years' long pack-a-day habit. Eventually - long after he stopped smoking - he threw the pack out, as part of his usual housekee…

> the asymmetry in the ease of adoption vs. difficulty of opting out A term related to this idea is dark pattern. This is a good overview of the idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxkrdLI6e6M

Wow - thanks for this. Hadn't heard this term before, but certainly covers problems that are brought up by design ethicists. Literally laughed out loud at how hard it is to close an amazon account. And I thought it was bad that the New York Times made me call them to cancel my digital subscription.

Re: Dumber phone

#254

Post by jonahhorowitz »

allenrb wrote: post #243

It's been about a month since I pulled the SIM from my iPhone, snipped it in half, sync'd the latest photos (mostly my daughter, or cats), ran a factory reset, and stuck it on a shelf. I bought an LG flip phone the next morning. Since then, I've felt like parts of my brain are growing back. While I'd cut down significantly on smartphone usage over the prior year, I'd started to realize that the mere act of exercising…

You should grab a high quality compact camera - something like a Sony RX100.

Re: Dumber phone

#255

Post by jonahhorowitz »

adhambadr wrote: post #122

Checkout our phone www.blloc.com . I think its exactly what we thought of, dumbing down the smartphone to the bare essentials without missing out too much. we don't have it perfectly communicated (working on it), but we're trying to find the middle between a "smartphone" and full blown detox. We got inspired from some of our friends who went "dark" and didn't work out; we were as product designers sick of snapchat, g…

The problem is I would never use Uber, but I use Lyft all the time. Other people probably have other limitiations and that's why a generic smartphone works better for the general use case.

Re: Dumber phone

#256

Post by jonahhorowitz »

hawski wrote: post #44

For me it's the browser. What I did yesterday on Firefox for Android: - installed uBlock Origin (also First Party Isolation and HTTPS Everywhere), - disabled JavaScript via about:config javascript.enabled, - and added .css| rule to uBlock Origin (I would still like to disable CSS entirely, this only half works). Basically I would like to have "links2 -g" [0] for Android. There is also an extension for Firefox to auto…

Get an iPhone, use Safari, and turn on automatic "reader" mode . You'll get everything you actually want.

Re: Dumber phone

#257

Post by graeme »

josefresco wrote: post #29

Does anyone with an Apple watch (or other smartwatch ) feel it helps them leave their smartphone behind and/or reduce their smartphone usage?

Mine hasn't, as there were too many things which didn't quite work. (Uber, lack of podcasts, difficult to play language lessons as MP3s, etc.)

Instead I made my smartphone much dumber, and it isn't really distracting now. But, I'm hoping a future watch os will have a better third party app development framework and allow it to be truly phone independent. I bought the watch hoping for phone independence.

Re: Dumber phone

#258

Post by raz32dust »

I disable most notifications, and even the ones that are turned on are silent ones. I keep the phone aside on the table almost all the time, and consider myself a relatively mild user of the smartphone. Where I really miss the phone and feel handicapped without it is when I have to quickly look something up on google/dictionary. e.g, if I have a quick random question about why something is the way it is, what causes some symptoms etc. I can't imagine going back to childhood (90s) when we had to go to libraries or ask poorly knowledgeable people about stuff.

In a way, I feel this is the future. Human beings are supposed to become one with the machine at some point. People who dislike that or choose to stay away might actually be likely to be outcast and be considered weird. I already see that happening, for example when I tell people I don't have a facebook account. It boils down to, "Do I value personal privacy, or being connected to the world's information flow ecosystem?". And I am not sure that choosing to be private is the obvious right answer at this point. And it might not even be possible in the near future.

Re: Dumber phone

#259

Post by sundvor »

Spooky23 wrote: post #129
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…

The key thing is to break the cycle where Facebook (or other attention generating machines) is the personal personal equivalent of O365 or GSuite at home. Never, ever, never use the app and you've solved 80% of your problem, because you don't have this external force trying to corrupt your decisionmaking. Not only will you not be dealing with their stalking draining your battery, but you'll get rid of the FOMO thing.…

I find it helps to access Facebook purely through their website, and just use their Messenger Lite app for messaging. This solves a lot of issues.

Re: Dumber phone

#260

Post by mratzloff »

laurieg wrote: post #49

I 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…

Like some others in this thread, I keep my phone permanently in grayscale to make it less visually stimulating.

In those extremely rare cases where I turn on color—when it's needed because a UI is color-based—I find the colors absolutely garish and want to turn them off immediately.

It's like eliminating refined sugar and artificial sweeteners from your diet and then eating a cupcake. It's too intense, and therefore offputting.

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