Ask HN: Anyone considered being phone-free?
I keep coming back to a desire to be phone free. Without digging into the reasons for this, how might one make this transition without losing too much utility? Eg. navigation, emergencies.
Disable all notifications. Don't publish your phone numbers. Be careful who you give out your contact information to.
Separate channels, e.g: dependants, friends, work1, work2. Mute as needed.
Teach your connections to stop and think before they ping you. Get them to limit it to important stuff. For me this has required several chats which can be uncomfortable to some, so keep it friendly.
Learn Discipline. Just because it sits in your backpack does not mean you have to look at it.
Maps + GPS are a great example, but generally any usage through which the phone gives you access to information in the right context (as opposed ti having to look up everything asynchronously from a computer) is invaluable. Being able to read email on the go to find an info (address, meeting time, previous interaction with someone, that time XX mentioned YY in an email, etc.), to check reviews on the quality purchases from the store (e.g. am I buying the right book books), to adapt and find a kid's playground/restaurant/transportation when travelling after having deviated from plans, etc.
It seems to me there is little debate in the fundamental benefits smartphones bring to the table, and what we need to work on is our relationship to the phone: querying it for info when we need it, and not letting it push useless info to us, as well put by the parent comment. Also, under that premise, any sort of entertainment should be avoided (it's just screentime with all it's negatives). Not sure how I'd classify Hacker News :)
HN is pushing information to us.
You typically don't visit HN to solve a specific problem. Compare to visiting Maps to find a route.
- remove social media apps, only use via browser, if at all
- deactivate all but the most relevant notifications
- remove all games and other addictive crap
- use daily time-limits for undirected "inspiration" sources like HN
The remaining phone is a tool and still very useful (or useful again).
I am not proud of the 4 digit hours I spend in counter strike on steam, but I am in the 3 digit hours I spend doing vocab. Paradoxily I look forward to long waits in the train station or at the doctors office, because I get more time in this positive feedback loop.
Also, I have been training myself to do st least some things phone-free. Such as taking walks or running errands without my phone. It’s crazy how in just a few short years, it feels impossible to leave home without a phone!
If you have a chance to get rid of it and make it work, go for it. We survived before without it, we can do it again. :)
When you say "we survived without it, we can do it again", you're implying that everyone can do it. But "we" still need to solve several major problems:
- National defense
- Fuel
- Power
- Medicine
- Food
- Construction
- Textiles
The "retreat to a small town" hasn't really ever worked as a large-scale model. Small towns in Europe were still backed up by national militaries, as were small towns in the U.S. There has to be some large-scale, militaristically competitive infrastructure in place before a calm, slow existence could return to a meaningful fraction of the population.
In broader context, we can have everyone say working 20 years in modern, corporate world, so that it does not crumble and we still get to enjoy its benefits, and then retiring to quiet life. It's what people some people with higher salaries are already doing (the FIRE movement), and with more wealth in the economy it would be available to everyone.
The pragmatic solution for me has been to have a smartphone without a SIM card, only connected to WiFi, lying around in my office and not carrying it around with me.
But I fear that the next development is around the corner that will now finally force me to carry a smart phone with me, namely things like Corona checkin apps or restaurants no longer doing printed menus and instead having QR codes at tables for fetching their menus from the web. -- The cost-benefit tradeoff of such developments strikes me as insanely bad, but unfortunately it seems to be where humanity is headed.
That should be illegal... The employer at least I suppose you can already request a work phone if they require it. At least I'm pretty sure that's the case here.
Actually, are you sure the banks require their apps though, even if they say they do? Google also says you need its Authenticator for example, but you don't, you can use Authy.
As a result I rarely carry my phone around. I really don't like interacting with the UI, it feels like navigating a website with tons of ad popups and after a decade of using smartphones I still hate virtual keyboards.
But I think I might go back to having no phone next year. I would not define myself as "the guy who has no phone", and I definitely allow myself to change my mind, it's not for tracking or privacy reasons, mostly that sometimes I feel the need to be a lot more creative and explorative than social. Remove a phone from your life can definitely make you see the world differently.
I no longer use an iPad, in fact I haven't used anything Apple since ~2013 post-Jobs.
These days, phones are increasingly used for multi-factor authentication via apps, and a lot of these don't ship with a tablet version of the app, or they rely on a phone number as well as the app. Unfortunately, I do use an Android phone.
Do I miss being phone-free? Yes. But here's what's changed with how I treat my phone:
All of my social media notifications are completely disabled. I look whenever I feel the urge or I'm doing a marketing campaign.
I no longer use umpteen different comms apps, the cognitive load and battery life was terrible because of it. Instead, I aggregate everything via bridges into my Matrix Synapse server, and access it via Element, meaning all of my devices have one app for all of my comms.
I triage email once every 2h automatically. The exception being that important notifications containing x in the subject line or y in the from field will get my attention on each device, and flash my lights a certain colour until the message is read. (Gmail scripts are cool)
I no longer give out my personal phone number. I only give out SIP numbers, this way I have greater control of who can contact me, and blocking numbers en masse is simple. Android has SIP support baked into the default dialler on most ROMs. This also means I can use my SIP accounts from any device.
Other than a handful of the absolute most essential apps, my smartphone is increasingly like a feature phone, and that's not a bad thing.
I do most of my reading on an Android e-ink device. My eyes thank me for it. For about six months I was using eyedrops to mitigate sore eyes from staring at screens all day, every day, but then realized I had to treat the source.
FWIW, despite having a high-end desktop, most of my day-to-day work, particularly stuff most people would use a phone for, has been replaced by a modded ThinkPad. Swappable batteries are great.
At home I use Google Voice on my laptop for Voice/SMS service.
The level of interruption is quite minimal, especially when I leave home.
After a while I got a 'dumb' phone in case of emergencies.
Navigation is harder, but actually it's nice to navigate London with your head up, remembering things, and realising how two familiar areas you know distinctly are connected, etc. Not to say I never looked up a route before leaving home.
Ultimately it was WhatsApp for family that got me to buy a phone again.
Personally I'd settle for a phone which doesn't connect to the mobile network unless I'm dialling out, or only connects when I'm in certain locations at certain times. Perhaps using a VoIP service and automatically connecting to specific trusted Wi-Fi networks would suffice for that use case, however I've often wondered if it would be possible for a mobile network provider to also operate an FM radio station, which would broadcast a pre-agreed code specific to one of their users whenever that user had an incoming call. I don't know how much battery it would drain for a phone to be constantly scanning FM radio data, though.
If I didn't need to be on call for family or friends, I'd turn it off and only use it when I needed to communicate, but that's not an option for me.
I navigate without it because I'm old and learned to do so well before google was invented, let alone google maps. However, google maps has utility (specifically, real time traffic), so it's likely to be something my next soon to be useless phone might have on it.
I will not ever put Facebook or any other social media on something I carry everywhere, because I would become addicted to it.
As stated elsewhere, separate tools from garbage. You don't have to use this tool in the same manner as others. You can turn it off and pull the battery, and put all that in a ziplock bag inside a tin can if you want.
It's your tool, use it how you want.
For navigation I have 2 portable GPS navigation systems. A really old one that I just can't get myself to throw away and a recent Garmin. If that fails I stop and ask for directions and meet new people.
Something you may find useful to reduce the phones attention-seeking behavior is to find a way to disable all sounds on your phone. I don't know if smart phones can do this but my little flip phone can be entirely silent and I can set custom ring tones in the phone book for important numbers. If something is important from a number I don't have they can leave a voicemail.
For entertainment I have Spotify and use Firefox for youtube not often clicking suggested content, and then usually in the same topic as the original--except the physics ones.
Back when I commuted to an office, if I left the house without my phone, I might call one person to let them know I didn't have my phone that day but otherwise not miss it, except for music or reading downloaded text during my commute. Never got into podcasts, couldn't find a series that stayed interesting.
It comes down to habits and what you consider important. Is the virtually presented lives of others or endless funnies important? Act according to your beliefs. I'm not perfect--spend too much time on HN.
A mobile phone without a SIM card is still useful because you can connect to Wi-Fi when you want and be otherwise offline.
Another halfway measure is just block all incoming calls.
https://www.ukeysoft.com/unlock/bypass-iphone-activation-wit...
The key to successful phone usage is, when you get a new phone, don't tell anyone beyond your immediate emergency contact individual your new phone number.
all of this have different consequences and mitigating options, so it would be relevant to know what exactly is that bothers you.
Had a mobile phone over 30 years.
Every once in a while I look around to see if there is something that seems like it would reasonably work, I haven't really found it yet. Maybe in the near future though.
re. the rest i feel the most important thing is to develop a solid social infrastructure. e.g. know your neighbors and be on good terms with them. know the places where you can get a hold of your friends if you need to. know your community and actively participate in it. that sort of thing. this is your safety net in case something goes awry.
It's been great. However, I still need to use a phone during work hours