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Comment by freebooter | Hacker News Reader

You make good points. I've been in IT now 20 years, and while I need a phone to text and make calls, I do nothing else with it. I'm thinking of ditching my iPhone for a flip phone.

I served in the military years ago. Just one tour. I got out with good memories but also some ideas. For example, I have standardized on Levi's 501 jeans, button down shirts of the same brand, and desert boots. I wear this daily. I don't have to think about what I wear. All my clothes fit as I expect, all the time. This frees me up to think about what matters--my family and job.

I made a comment further down about freewill you might find interesting, as freewill is now going to cost those of us who care about it.

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Of all the people I know, us IT folk seem to be the most adverse to interruptions and/or needless complexity, caring most about the things that matter - this is strange considering that we are most responsible for these problems. People have stared at me blankly enough for me to realize that I shouldn't bring up the social evils of Facebook in general conversation, yet my IT friends are happy to talk about the subject to death.

> I'm thinking of ditching my iPhone for a flip phone.

I still don't think I could do without a smartphone. I have practically all notifications muted, but you need apps for too many things (most notably: Lyft to stay responsible).

> I'm thinking of ditching my iPhone for a flip phone.

That reminds me of my college days back in 2011 when I decided to go for a flip phone instead of a smartphone. Most of my friends thought I was peculiar for my insisting I use one and to do this day I still have that same flip phone, but not in use; just as a memento... sort of.

At the time, I wasn't really thinking about how my attention was a valuable resource or that most smartphone apps were major distractions. I just simply didn't like how inundated with features smartphones were. I always thought my laptop as my primary place of "getting-work-done" and my gaming laptop for entertainment (i.e. helluva lot of StarCraft II) and to have a phone that competed with that, but far worse, never sat well with me.

Looking back, I'm glad I did that and wish I could continue with a phone that could only text/call.

edit: Formatting

> I'm thinking of ditching my iPhone for a flip phone

If you are in any longstanding 100% iMessage group chats you will be silently excluded from them if you switch away from iPhone. Disabling iMessage will have no effect on those chats.

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