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A negative for me would be not being able to read whenever I have to wait on something. I have read more books than ever before because I have them on my phone.

It sounds like a lot of people in this thread do not need to quit using a smart phone, and instead need to quit facebook. I don't do FB and do not have many alerts at all on my phone. My email apps are smart enough to only show me alerts for things that matter and everything else I get to when I get to it.

I do agree with you on one thing though. When hanging out with people leave your phones in the car. Nothing is more annoying that having a conversation and people messing around on their phones.

Sometimes it's not as easy as just quitting facebook. This argument comes up a lot, but it's a solution that works entirely on a case-by-case basis.

When I had a smart phone, the methods of communicating with me were email, work email, work IM, facebook, skype, hangouts, phone, and text. Because of work, it wasn't possible to do airplane mode and it wasn't possible to do a sleep-mode bypass for specific phone numbers because of the oncall situations.

The only way I could find to manage notifications properly was to essentially create a black list for my contacts and blacklist all apps. It worked up until somebody on the black list needs to reach me, so they get added to the white list to avoid the issue. Oh, shit, they're texting me while I'm trying to work - back to the whitelist!

It eventually just becomes an incredibly tedious task to manage your notifications properly - which in itself is a dang distraction.

Agreed on leaving phones elsewhere - just as long as you live in a decent area. Some of the most awkward times I've had recently are while hanging out with others where everyone is on their phones and I can really only just twiddle my thumb. Bringing the subject only results in "hipster" comments, rather than an actual discussion.

I thought the same way until I realized that 99% of the people I'm bantering with online are only in my life because they are accessible. Neither of us would ever put the effort towards actually meeting up and hanging out. I only have a couple of people I want to retain contact with so ditching FB and all other chats was simple. I'm able to actually DO things now instead of being in this weird digital limbo where my life is a moving data point and social media is the measuring stick. I couldn't come up with a good answer to "Who actually are these people I chat with all day?"

Many people have two phones (and two accounts for every relevant messaging service) for that reason; one phone for normal communication and one that people are told to only contact in urgent cases. If you manage to make people adhere to that you can put the normal phone in airplane mode as needed while still being reachable for important things.

Android and iPhone both have software settings that can mute calls and texts from anyone who isn't on a whitelist. I use the "Blocking Mode" on Android all the time: if you call me after 11pm and aren't on a short list, you go right to voicemail.

For some cases that works great, but whitelists fall short when the same people text you both for important and unimportant reasons.

I actually tried that for a bit. Biggest problem is.. then you have two phones in your pocket.

Since it's possible to send a text to an email address, I just tell folk to shoot me an email with anything important. The conversation can sometimes get weird when they ask, "Why can't I just send a text to your computer?". I'm pretty curious about where that dissonance comes from, as it's happened maybe 4 or 5 times already.

Do you really need to get a dumbphone to avoid all this nonsense, though—or do you just need to get everyone to treat you as if you have a dumbphone? Which you might easily do by, say, telling them that you have a dumbphone, whether you do or not. If nobody thinks they can reach you over all these notification protocols, then you don't have to manage the notifications—even if you are, secretly, reachable over those protocols.

I don't have a phone either, but carry an e-reader with me most of the time. Best of both worlds.

I've always thought if the Kindle Paperwhite was just slightly nicer spec-wise, it might be my perfect tablet. Batteries that last a long time, books everywhere, a better browser would be great, a way to take notes maybe, slightly more responsive screen. I don't need much more.

Kindle Fire! The $50 one is just good enough that I can use / take notes on it, but not so good that I end up browsing the web.

Often is easier to avoid temptation than to resist it. Hence why throwing the phone away is better for some people.

Personally, I have a smartphone and have no intention of giving it up. It's just too useful, between taking photos, using GPS, playing games if I'm stuck somewhere and am bored, using RealCalc (RPN calculator app), plus of course voicemail, texting, etc. I rarely use it for email though; I wait until I get home for that. Email is, by definition, not that urgent IMO.

I really don't understand why a bunch of people here feel like they need to get rid of their phone, or put it in airplane mode, or get a dumbphone, or whatever. I guess you all have a whole lot more friends and family than I do. If I don't want to be bothered by people, it's simple, I just go about my business and no one calls or texts me most of the time. And if someone does at a bad time (and half the time it's a wrong number or something anyway), I just ignore it.

Of course, as a few people mentioned, I don't have Facebook installed on my phone either. What a waste of time (and battery power).

As for hanging out, that's easy: if you're having a conversation, don't get your phone out and mess with it. Is that really so hard? I keep mine handy on my belt holster, and if I'm talking to someone, it stays there, unless I have a really good reason to whip it out, such as wanting to show them something on it. I'm not the most socially-adept guy around, but even I know better than to get my phone out when I'm talking to someone and use it (like for texting) to the exclusion of that person's attention.

It is possible to order Uber on a laptop. https://m.uber.com/ with location services active on your browser. Works well.

Just so this post is relevant to conversation... I use a Blackberry Q10 with the keyboard. I only have SMS and phone and it is great for those purposes. I used to have an Android but it was too intense for my fragile millenial attention.

You can use m.uber.com on a phone, too, and it complains less than the app does if you have location services turned off. (Though it actually is possible to order a car without location services, despite its protestations, if you dance back and forth enough times to make it close the alert box.)

> It is possible to order Uber on a laptop.

But probably not possible to sign up without a phone?

You can sign up on regular Uber.com

Thanks! It's a bit of a hacky way (why doesn't their non-mobile version at least link to it?!), but it's better than nothing, I guess.

if you have a windows 10 laptop they also have an app: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/uber/9wzdncrfhxrd

    Plans are planned significantly more concretely.

I've found that only works as long as everyone you work or hang out with knows that you don't have a smartphone and, therefore, don't have access to Google Maps and Facebook everywhere. Otherwise you can get into trouble when, for example, someone changes the location of a meetup at the last minute, with the expectation that everyone will 1) be notified of the new location and 2) be easily able to find their way to the new address.

I would think people who have "dumb" phones have a bit of extra money to invest in GPS. This is one reason I'm considering switching from Sprint into Google Fi, the only thing holding me back is the hefty cost of the phone.

You can get a pretty good deal on the previous gen Nexus 6 from Amazon @ http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Unlocked-Cellphone-Discontinu.... I was considering getting one there instead of buying it directly from Google Fi.

GPS devices have a host of annoyances... Lack of live traffic information (unless you want to pay a subscription), no Waze reporting (a feature of Google Maps), slow power up and lock, difficult to pick waypoints manually and zoom around freely, etc. Maybe they have gotten better in recent years but I haven't been very impressed in the past.

Thanks, hopefully I end up with a reliable phone. The GPS is really the only thing relevant to me outside of texting and talking.

> "You don't have a phone?! What's wrong with you?!" -everybody

I think next-wave hipsters won't have phones.

I'm 34, and I've resisted having a cell phone my whole life.

For the last 4 years I had a dumb phone, but 6 months ago I got rid of it and have gone back to no phone at all.

I've never had a "smart phone" and given that I'm addicted to the internet/computers, I think it's best that I don't, else I'd be the guy constantly on my phone rather than engaging with the people in the room with me.

The negatives are sometimes annoying, but I only need to see how tied to their phones other people are to remind me of the positives.

Good on you! I have a work-provided smart phone, and while it's nice to have, I constantly stun my more progressive co-workers by leaving my phone off for long periods of time. It doesn't take that much more time to turn it on if I truly need it, but often I just forget about it.

I suspect I could do without a cell phone of any type. I'm just not the target demographic, I guess.

You could also put it on airplane mode so when you turn it off from airplane mode you wont have to "wait" for it to turn on. This also saves significant battery, maybe not as much as it being turned off but enough.

In echo of your words, for the last few years, people I've been meeting in the pub have sometimes turned up late, sometimes really quite late indeed, and they always complained that they couldn't call me to tell me. I would point out that they would generally have called too late for me to delay, being on my way to the pub already (or even already there), but there was a weird belief that telling me they were late made it better, somehow.

Except this year. For example, the last time I went to the pub (a week ago) the other party got there bang on time, to the minute, having apparently freaked out at his other half and made absolutely sure that she'd give him a ride to the pub in time, because he knew there was no way to contact me. Now that I'm known for not being contactable, people actually start planning around it and make an effort to be on time.

This would be a deal breaker if one has kids or old parents or someone with medical condition at home :( In all other cases, it is very much possible to live without a smart phone

You can get a nice GPS with up-to-date maps and a data connection for traffic etc for $200-$400 these days if that's the biggest part you're missing. Garmin still makes nice ones: http://www.cnet.com/topics/gps/best-gps/