A practical guide to quitting your smartphone • Hacker News Board

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#61

Post by vel0city » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:43 AM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #29

allthecybers wrote: post #15

I'd love to quit my smartphone and have looked at options like Lite Phone to replace it. The only issue is my smartphone is now my GPS, my payment method, my home lighting controller, my car/house key, and my health tracker. Plus, was a convenient way to keep tabs on work messages. Half a decade ago I eliminated all my social media. Then about a year ago I started by removing work email and messaging from my phone.Th…

> The only issue is my smartphone is now my GPS, my payment method, my home lighting controller, my car/house key, and my health tracker. If you use GPS only for navigation in a car, get a Garmin or something similar. Payment: Is it that hard to use a CC like most people do...? I only recently used my phone for payments (lost card and was waiting for replacement), and did not find it any more convenient than using a…

Not OP, but in a similar place for the phone somewhat dominating on the go stuff. Its just incredibly freeing leaving the house with only my phone. These days it can handle payment most places. It is my library card. My bus pass. My car key. My camera. My paperback novel. My guide. My gym pass. It lets me know when my bus or train is running late. It lets me know when that store is going to close, or if its even open on a Sunday. All the while providing music while on the go and entertainment when sitting around.

When I've got my phone, I don't need my keys. I don't need my wallet. I don't need a book. I can have a whole night out with the only thing on me is my phone, other than a few bucks stashed in my shoe for emergency bus fare.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#62

Post by Syonyk » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:45 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #48

As important as this issue is, I have to wonder if it has eclipsed desktop addiction, after all both are just manifestations of browser, or rather internet addiction.

Oh, absolutely. A desktop is far, far less "fanged" than a phone. It's not with you all the time, and it generally can't send notifications if you don't have a webpage open (I know there are the "web notifications" every shady site wants to use, but they're off by default, vs on by default for phones).

Going back to a desktop computer that you turn off regularly (so there's some friction waiting for it to boot) is one of the best ways to approach the internet these days.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#63

Post by pj_mukh » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:46 AM UTC

seam_carver wrote: post #36

I have an e ink smartphone, specifically a Hisense A9. It has the same screen as a Kindle. It is wonderful for productive stuff like reading, messaging is passable, and videos are pretty much unusable. It's wonderful, I've read so many books now.

What’s maps/yelp like?

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#64

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:48 AM UTC

skidd0 wrote: post #50

lethologica wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying to addicts “Just stop smoking crack”. Everyone knows smoking crack is bad for you. A lot of people want to quit but are unable to no matter how much “self discipline” they have. And app developers have teams of people dedicated to making sure you stay on these apps longer and longer. Now imagine your dealer is in your pocket 24/7.

Except crack and other drugs form physical dependencies which leads to withdrawal. Smart phone addicts have a more psychological battle. That's the willpower/self-discipline part. How do you build discipline? Practice! So, yeah, it can be as simple as telling yourself "just stop using the apps" as often as you can to build up the skill.

[deleted]

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#65

Post by cortesoft » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:49 AM UTC

wintorez wrote: post #55

The strategy that has worked for me so far is to delete all any addicting app (entertainment, social media, etc) that has a web version. I still can access them with browser, but the experience is not the same, so after a while, I get bored, and close them.

Well I am screwed, then, because I already only access everything via the web browser on my phone, I don’t have any entertainment or social media apps… but I still browse hackernews and Reddit too much.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#66

Post by 0x38B » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:50 AM UTC

insearchoflost wrote: post #53

When my last android died in a freak accident all I had was a spare iPhone mini. I find simply not having a good screen size for reading has cut down on my usage by easily half. I suspect e-ink phone users probably have similar effective phone aversion. iPhone text prediction constantly messing with me didn’t help either. I’m sure it’s tunable somewhere, I just don’t care anymore.

I also have a small iPhone, but have had the opposite experience; text looks great thanks to the quality and resolution of the display and I far prefer it to my laptop for reading, with the exception of PDFs (my iPad was great for those).

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#67

Post by goosejuice » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:51 AM UTC

15457345234 wrote: post #39

MattRix wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ignores the fact that many of the apps people use are designed and A/B tested to maximize time spent/wasted. The fact that it happens to not work on you does not mean it works for everyone. Sometimes an addiction really is because something is designed to be incredibly addictive, not because of some underlying psychological issue with the user.

It's pure gaslighting 'it isn't the drug that's addictive, it's the user that has issues' lol no sweetie

Hardly 'pure gaslighting'. Both can be true. The user is a part of the equation.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#68

Post by 2024throwaway » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:54 AM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #29

allthecybers wrote: post #15

I'd love to quit my smartphone and have looked at options like Lite Phone to replace it. The only issue is my smartphone is now my GPS, my payment method, my home lighting controller, my car/house key, and my health tracker. Plus, was a convenient way to keep tabs on work messages. Half a decade ago I eliminated all my social media. Then about a year ago I started by removing work email and messaging from my phone.Th…

> The only issue is my smartphone is now my GPS, my payment method, my home lighting controller, my car/house key, and my health tracker. If you use GPS only for navigation in a car, get a Garmin or something similar. Payment: Is it that hard to use a CC like most people do...? I only recently used my phone for payments (lost card and was waiting for replacement), and did not find it any more convenient than using a…

Not to suggest more gadgets are the answer, but my apple watch covers almost all of these now.

GPS, check.

Payment, check.

Lighting, check.

Car/house key, no.

Health tracker, check.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#69

Post by interbased » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:54 AM UTC

hilux wrote: post #60

wintorez wrote: post #55

The strategy that has worked for me so far is to delete all any addicting app (entertainment, social media, etc) that has a web version. I still can access them with browser, but the experience is not the same, so after a while, I get bored, and close them.

I do this too. Of course, the companies fight back, e.g. Facebook messaging isn't (last I checked) available through the Facebook-in-the-browser; it requires the Messenger app.

This is correct for messenger.com itself, but you can access Messenger through Facebook.com - it's just another tab on the website. If you don't want to visit Facebook.com, though, then yes you're out of luck.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#70

Post by 0x38B » Mon, Feb 05, 2024, 3:56 AM UTC

seam_carver wrote: post #36

I have an e ink smartphone, specifically a Hisense A9. It has the same screen as a Kindle. It is wonderful for productive stuff like reading, messaging is passable, and videos are pretty much unusable. It's wonderful, I've read so many books now.

I considered the Hisense but talked myself out of it because of Android and lack of updates.

Part of me thinks I should just go for it, because I read a lot on my smartphone and miss Android’s Moon+ Reader - with Goldendict for Startdict/Lingvo dictionaries, it made a killer combo for reading foreign language texts with many new words.

Videos being unusable would be a fantastic QoL feature.