Yo I have spent years of my life online. I almost crashed my car because I was composing a message. I’ve had panic attacks about losing my data connection. I scrolled for hours and then couldn’t remember anything I saw during those hours. I have chosen a screen over a conversation, a view, a book, a good night’s sleep, a moment of quiet reflection.
In other words, I’ve had a smartphone.
For the first half of my 20s, I was an online art influencer. That was my job. I documented every aspect of my life for an audience of almost 200,000 people on Instagram. Nothing was forbidden: the creative process, mood swings, love life, hospital stays.
My life was a one-woman tabloid generating traffic for my art business. He needed the attention almost as much as the money. He had few friends. He had many followers. The balance was not sustainable.
I isolated myself and became addicted to social media, and the two states perpetuated each other. One day, I crashed and deactivated my account. I ordered an old Nokia and everything changed.
The effects of getting rid of my smartphone have been countless and life-changing. It took stopping cold turkey to see how distracted I had become, how anxious, how easily bored, how resistant I had become to silence, presence, pain, and other natural human states.
The benefits of the downgrade accrued gradually, over many months of retreat and adjustment. Even years after my demotion, I continue to notice new benefits, aspects of myself that are only now emerging from beneath the shadow of technology addiction.
Now I never get bored. Everything is interesting. I read long books. I go on long walks without headphones. When I have to wait, when a bus is late or a friend goes to the bathroom, I just sit there. I check my emails and such when I’m in front of my computer. I’ve found that when the Internet is out of my reach, it rarely crosses my mind.
The most easily quantifiable benefit of degradation is time. You will recover hours of each day when you stop scrolling. You can use that time to be healthy, social, or productive, but you can also use it to be inactive. Idleness is a lost art and, in my opinion, is essential for mental health and creativity. I spend a good part of the day leafing through magazines, drinking cups of tea and clumsily playing the piano. I don’t think it’s possible to waste time when you’re fully present.
If you’re interested in upgrading to a dumb phone, you may have questions about how practical or even possible it is. How do we live our lives without Google Maps, Wi-Fi calling, and two-factor authentication? These questions can make the idea of a demotion difficult.
But remember that people lived for millennia without smartphones. With time, patience, and smart solutions, we can all find our way back to that.
Here are my answers to some of the most common questions I have received.
How do you use two-factor authentication?
For security reasons, certain online platforms may require you to confirm your logins in a smartphone app. There are a few ways to fix this, depending on the platform you are using:
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Buy a physical security device to connect it to your computer while authenticating. A popular option is YubiKey.
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Ask if you can receive SMS verification, if you work or study somewhere with an IT department. This will mean that you may receive an authentication code sent to your dumb phone and sometimes this can be enabled manually, but please note that this is a less secure method.
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some foolsPhones have browser functions. that support two-factor authentication.
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Use a backup phone (At first, this might seem like it defeats the purpose of a markdown; we’ll discuss that later.)
If you find yourself stuck in this particular problem, you are not alone! This is one of the most difficult and essential smartphone features to replicate. You can also check online forums (such as the dumb phones subreddit) for more ideas.
How can you stay in touch with friends, family and co-workers?
After you downgrade, your new phone will still allow you to send text messages and make calls. The only potential complication is that many of us use online messaging to stay in touch, especially internationally.
Fortunately, almost all of them (iMessage, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram) can be accessed from your desktop computer. And while laptops are Internet-connected devices, they will never capture your attention like a smaller portable device will.
In my experience, the only people you really need to contact while traveling are those you are coordinating with. What time will you be there? either I’m late – That is urgent information.
Less urgent are group chats, messages to friends and family abroad, and direct messages to social media acquaintances. These things could feel urgent, but once you step away from them, you may realize that the sense of urgency was a product of software engineering, your own anxiety, or a combination of both.
How are you supposed to navigate without a maps app?
Here’s something you may not have realized: most dumb phones have a maps app. In fact, unlike the bricks of the early 2000s, some modern dumb phones feature Bluetooth, MP3 players and even a tiny, awkward-to-use search engine.
If those conveniences seem necessary to you, then look for a dumb phone that provides them. (I used to have a flip phone with Google Maps, but I recently downgraded to an even dumber phone because I was using the maps feature obsessively, checking my ETA every few blocks to see if I’d gone over the estimated travel time. hike. It’s amazing how much is enough to entertain you once you’ve broken your smartphone addiction.)
But it is also possible to live without digital navigation tools. Personally, I prefer to navigate using a combination of: looking up directions before leaving home, consulting posted transit maps, asking strangers for help, and generally familiarizing myself with the area so I can get around intuitively.
Interestingly, I find that I rarely need to refer to my hand-drawn maps: the process of writing down addresses serves to embed them in my brain. Over time, my accumulated knowledge of local geography and transportation has allowed me, for the most part, to navigate without maps.
What about listening to music and podcasts?
Even before the smartphone existed, people listened to audio while traveling. You can find cheap old MP3 players online and some dumb phones come with audio players.
However, you will have to find a way to download what you want to listen to. Libraries are a great resource for CDs and audiobooks. Podcasts can be accessed for free download and offline listening through Apple. If you’re looking for newer releases, I highly recommend purchasing them from Bandcamp and putting the money you’ve saved on your phone plan (not to mention the phone itself) toward supporting musicians.
All that said, your need for auditory stimulation will certainly decrease once you downgrade. You’ll soon discover that you can happily move through the world with only your thoughts for entertainment.
What about taking pictures?
I carry a film camera with me everywhere. Receiving my film scans is the highlight of my month: the photos are higher quality and seem much more special to me than any of the 60,000 photos I took with my smartphone before downgrading.
The key difference is not just the film. You might prefer a digital camera, and I know plenty of dumb phone users who prefer it. Still, using a real camera is a very different experience for two reasons: the friction of retrieving a separate device will make taking photos a more deliberate act, and the single-purpose nature of the camera will mean there will be no distractions or intrusions while you’re shooting. you use he.
Is there anything you can’t use without a smartphone?
As insistent as I am about the viability of a life without smartphones, even I have to admit that there are certain things that are impossible without one; impossible, that is, when you are on the move, away from your computer and your Internet connection. .
These include WhatsApp, Spotify, tickets to certain concerts and sports matches, electric car charging and location sharing. It’s easy to obsess over these losses, but I encourage you to think about everything you’re gaining in the process: time, presence, and peace of mind. Don’t those things deserve any inconvenience?
…do I need a backup phone?
A backup phone is a smartphone that ideally remains turned off and stored away from special circumstances. Many dumb phone users still keep a smartphone in a drawer, or even at a friend’s house, in case it’s needed for verification. There are certain services and apps that simply assume that everyone has access to a smartphone, and the hassle involved in navigating these obstacles may not seem worth it.
So if you feel like you need a backup phone, there’s no shame in having one for those times of need (if you have an electric car and need to charge it, for example).
However, for other everyday tasks, you will find that they are less urgent the less accessible they are. Do you really need to check your email on the train? Do you really need to buy concert tickets at the doctor’s office? Or can these things wait until you’re in front of your computer?
It is easy to calculate the inconveniences that a reduction implies. I encourage you to think about what you will gain, which is less quantifiable. Isn’t your newfound presence, attention, and free time worth the occasional missed email or late arrival to an event?
Yes, there will be downsides and you may be tempted to see them as justification to switch again. In those moments, try to reconnect with your original motivation for downgrading. Who did you want to become? Isn’t it worth it?
It’s been years since I downgraded and I’ve adapted so completely to the fool that I completely forget about it until someone else brings it to my consciousness. “Do you miss having a smartphone?” they ask, and I think about the height of my addiction. How could I miss that moment? I was hardly even there.