Comment by caseyy

Comment by caseyy 6 days ago

25 replies

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Under $100:

- A dumbphone. Even if I’m not using it anymore, it has shown me what life I could be living without distractions. My anxiety and stress levels went down from about the second day using it, I became much more aware of my emotional state and the environment around me, it was a noticeable shift.

I no longer buy the arguments that we can control our smartphone addictions with will. The technology is too optimised for most of us to break free. And the addictions — too subtle for most to notice.

It may simply be a physiological addiction to checking email or for notifications every now and then. If you feel like you’d be missing out unless you check your phone several times a day, you have it. If you reach for your phone without thinking when you’re bored, you have it. It’s all about compulsive action.

I think much of the population is addicted. Certainly most of the online types.

Every interaction with your phone pulls you out of being present!

shiroiushi 6 days ago

I really don't see the point of a dumbphone: it seems a lot like buying a ham radio and trying to use that for your daily life. Who am I going to talk to with a dumbphone? No one actually does "phone calls" any more using voice calling, at least in my corner of the world. (They do for work, but I'm not in a customer-facing job so I don't.)

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  • schwartzworld 11 hours ago

    Flip phones now have apps, but very limited. You can totally get a modern flip phone to check your email or play Spotify if you need to, but web browsing and doom scrolling are pretty tough.

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  • 6510 6 days ago

    There seems to be a hole in the market for a dumb phone that does sms well. Perhaps we can even get rid of phone calls entirely and just have an sms device with a camera.

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    • Foyerr 6 days ago

      I would suggest an eink phone if this is what you're looking for. I, for example have the Hisense A5. Can do everything a regular android phone can it's just less effective

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      • 6510 5 days ago

        Then you end up doing all kinds of android things. I don't want a toaster that is also a casino and a web browser. It needs to be a thoughtless process between the idea of having toast and eating it. "lets have toast", "ahh, nice toast"

        These are a good example

        https://www.tripsavvy.com/best-digital-translators-4154191

        They just translate, no candy crush, no angry birds, no hero wars, no facebook, no push notifications how you've spend 123 minutes per day using your phone. You can take it to the pub and not end up playing hayday, doom scroll twiiter or hey, I can spend the night reading hn, and ohh is it closing time already? Did anyone else have a good time?

        The assumption one can be strong enough to not do that isn't supported by the data.

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  • EasyMark 5 days ago

    In the USA -lots- of people use SMS only, and it’s their main communication. You can do that on a dumb phone, and if you tend to get into doom scrolling or TikTok dance scrolling it can allow you to recover a lot of free time back. No SM? Count me in.

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    • shiroiushi 3 days ago

      >In the USA -lots- of people use SMS only, and it’s their main communication. You can do that on a dumb phone

      This is unique to the US (and probably Canada); elsewhere, everyone uses various chat apps to communicate.

      Regardless, if we just ignore everyplace else, the main problem I see here is that texting on a dumbphone is really painful once you're used to typing out messages on a modern smartphone's touchscreen. Sure, they had that T9 system back then, but compared to typing on a modern phone it's a huge step backwards in typing speed and usability. On top of that, the tiny screen size makes it much harder to follow a conversation.

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  • [removed] 6 days ago
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whitehexagon 6 days ago

Agreed. Only stupid thing is that my dumb phone comes with fb that cannot be deleted, but I have no data-plan. Oh and some games that apparently auto-bill your phone account if you start using them, also cannot be deleted. Still it was the best tech purchase in a long time under 100e for quality of life improvement, and helped me finally escape the depressing 'news/propaganda' streams.

under 1000e: I am still experimenting with, but a water distiller and some glass bottles to try and escape the plastic water bottle madness.

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doublepg23 6 days ago

I think I like the “dumbify” apps better. You can install them on a regular smartphone and make it a bad experience for doom scrolling but still have conveniences like MFA apps, Password Managers, audio books, music streaming, etc. that are hard to come by on true dumb phones.

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sotix 6 days ago

I switched to an iPad plus cellular Apple Watch, and I’m finding it more convenient than a straight up dumb phone. Biggest downside is no ride share apps work on it, but otherwise it has everything I need.

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idontwantthis 6 days ago

I’m thinking about getting a cellular apple watch and not carrying around a phone most of the time. Can still get critical messages without being able to check the news when I’m bored or anxious.

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  • Always42 6 days ago

    i did this for some time. I'm probably due to again as I check my phone often. Apple watch does have standalone navigation which is a win. It got annoying not being able to do things sometimes, such as checking a groupme etc.

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beryilma 6 days ago

What are the dumb phone options in the US? I want to get one.

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  • caseyy 6 days ago

    Sunbeam is a popular one. Also a bunch of Nokias should work.

    There is also the Xiaomi/Qin/Duoqin F30. It’s a T9 phone with Android 11. But the “Westernized” version with Google Play Store has tampered with software (hacks applied) as the original Chinese software doesn’t have Google stuff nor is the phone Play verified. Then there are questions about the Chinese software itself. I’ve gone deep into the rabbit hole of trying to verify it’s secure but couldn’t to a satisfactory standard.

    The F30 is still considered a dumbphone for how limiting the T9 keyboard and its tiny screen are. You won’t enjoy consuming or searching for any kind of content on it. But you can install many modern Android apps if you are comfortable with the security situation. And that’s quite important sometimes to not get isolated from people, to bank, for 2FA, streaming music, and a few other things. It’s basically then a capable but highly inconvenient phone, which I think is excellent.

    Still, if you want privacy and security, how many days are you willing to sink into tinkering with these Xiaomi/Qin/Duoqin devices? You will need at least a few, possibly more.

    It’s much less hassle to just get whatever dumb phone with a feature OS you can get on Amazon or Walmart.

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memset 6 days ago

I think about this a lot! How did you overcome the compulsion? I quickly revert when I try to ween off any tech.

What do you do instead?

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  • al_borland 5 days ago

    Delete the stuff you’re compulsively checking. Turn off notifications, so you need to make the intention to check things, rather than the phone calling for attention. Spend some time now trying to ween, but going told turkey. Go for a walk, leaving the phone at home. Leave it in another room when doing things around the house. Don’t take it with you into the bathroom. Get comfortable with boredom. Allow your mind to wander and see where it takes you.

    Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism is pretty good for stressing the importance of spending time in thought without the influence of the internet, podcasts, audiobooks, or anything else. This used to be the norm for large sections of the day for people… now it’s rather rare.

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  • caseyy 6 days ago

    That’s why it’s important to have tech that serves you, like a dumbphone. You throw your smartphone away (leave it in your car, leave it at work, throw it in the deep end of your attic, etc), make it really inconvenient to act in these compulsions.

    And then you just suffer through it for a few days. It gets better very quickly.

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  • shepherdjerred 6 days ago

    I wrote about my approach here: https://sjer.red/blog/2023/screen-time/

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    • caseyy 6 days ago

      That’s a nice compendium of methods. I tried almost all of them, they all work to an extent.

      I now use a smartphone again, as practicalities of life demand it. But I am switching to an old sluggish iPhone with a 4.X inch screen to hopefully put frictions in my use of it. I will see if that helps.

      You can disable Safari in iOS. Search for “Content & Privacy Restrictions” in Settings. Then turn Safari off in “Allowed Apps & Features”. The app will disappear after a few minutes.

      You can also turn off the Fitness app this way, even if you have an Apple Watch, and Car Play if you don’t like it for some reason, such as your car auto-connecting.

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  • wonger_ 6 days ago

    Remember to replace the bad habit with new activities, filling the void

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el_benhameen 6 days ago

Mind sharing the one you bought?

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  • caseyy 6 days ago

    I bought a rare one that I needed for a very specific reason. It was difficult to get it imported.

    Try one of the mainstream ones. There is a dumbphone finder website online to see what’s generally available, though no such website is exhaustive.

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