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Comment by LarryDarrell | Hacker News Reader

They skipped right over getting a dumbphone or a crippled Android device.

I drive a 30 year old car through the southwest US. I'm resourceful, but I'm not careless. I'll continue to carry a phone in case of breakdowns.

A few years ago my checking account was drained while I was on vacation. It was pretty nice having a phone with a cell number that matched what was registered with my bank.

...

Delete social media off your phone. A smartphone without social media is a tool. A smartphone with social media is a prison.

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> A smartphone without social media is a tool. A smartphone with social media is a prison.

Smartphones are a dopamine feed regardless. I got a modern Android smartphone only after deleting my Facebook account some years ago, and I have no other social media. I still find myself doomscrolling the news on the phone, to the point where I was no longer reading literature or simply thinking my thoughts. I had to make a rule that at home, my phone would never leave the kitchen.

Exactly this. I'm running a de-googled Android device without any social media on it. Sure it's not as convenient, but I find myself with all the benefits outlined by the first paragraph of that article, with the extra tools that help make my life easier.

For example, my sense of orientation got a lot better but I'd be doing myself a disservice not to use OSM in a city I'm not familiar with. The slow loading and time for the GPS to lock on makes it more of a "only if necessary" use, I mostly end up asking for directions or figuring out my own way via public maps, I enjoy that more.

I have an iPhone 13 mini and I think it's really the perfect smartphone for me. I like the size and shape and I appreciate the overall build quality. But I keep it pretty minimal: I only use the phone, SMS, and occasionally Apple Maps. And the only apps I have installed are Apple Music Classical and Google Auth. No email app either, though I'll install the HEY.com app when I'm traveling. I use the privacy restrictions to disable almost everything including the camera, podcasts, Safari, Health, Siri, etc. I use iCloud to sync my contacts and that's it.

The last phone I had before this one was an iPhone 8, and before that an iPhone 5—both setup in the same way. I've never used my phone for entertainment or for socialization. It's always been a tool and I think it's better this way.

Wendell Berry, The Vacation (1994):

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.

He went flying down the river in his boat

with his video camera to his eye, making

a moving picture of the moving river

upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly

toward the end of his vacation. He showed

his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,

preserving it forever: the river, the trees,

the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat

behind which he stood with his camera

preserving his vacation even as he was having it

so that after he had had it he would still

have it. It would be there. With a flick

of a switch, there it would be. But he

would not be in it. He would never be in it.

> He would never be in it.

Then came the selfie stick.

> Delete social media off your phone. A smartphone without social media is a tool. A smartphone with social media is a prison.

Removed Instagram, Reddit, Twitter. Phone has an RSS reader, a browser, messaging apps and (lots of) mapping apps. Could not be happier. I pick it up on purpose, otherwise it sits there. Battery lasts way longer. I don't care about it and sometimes I forget where it is until it rings. True bliss.

Getting a dumbphones is also way more cost effective. I just tried to look up the cost. For the first year, getting a landline would cost me $575. Use the landline at work... They give us cellphones, no landline and there are no payphone anymore.

Just get a dumbphone and leave it at home.

If you like using wired telephones but don't want to pay landline rates, you have a few options:

- Use an analog telephony adapter (ATA) to connect your telephone to a SIP VoIP service. There are plenty of providers, and service is dirt cheap.

- Get a telephone with something like Link2Cell, and connect it to your cellphone via Bluetooth. You can now use the telephone to make calls through your cellphone.

- Similarly, if you don't want to buy a new telephone, get an adapter like an XLink BT, which lets you do the same thing using your existing telephone.

- Use a fixed wireless terminal (FWT) to connect your telephone to cellular service directly. The FWT will accept a SIM card. (This might not be an option anymore though, since these tend to operate on GSM networks.)

Good advice. Early this morning I installed Safari extension on my iPad and iPhone that blocks those annoying “install our app” and “use our app” banners on web sites. Not having any social media apps installed makes me feel better about using my devices and not seeing those annoying nag banners keeps me calm

I get some real value from social media, but I like to severely limit my time.

Services like Apple Screen time to see how much time you loses every week help a lot. The Freedom.to service (and their web blog and podcasts) is also a great resource.

> I'm resourceful, but I'm not careless. I'll continue to carry a phone in case of breakdowns.

They got you covered:

> If you have a bank account, there may be a public phone at a branch that you can use.

> Delete social media off your phone. A smartphone without social media is a tool. A smartphone with social media is a prison.

Given that all social media sites can be accessed through the browser, I don't see how deleting the apps makes that much difference.

* Reddit enters the chat

The lack of notifications and even something as small as no app icon with a red circle on it make a huge difference

That hasn't been my experience. For me the problem is the habit of opening up the phone and scrolling whenever I'm not immediately engaged in something else. It's not driven by notifications. I would happily uninstall the browser if Android would let me tbh

I love dumbphones and I used to carry one until ~2 years ago, but it's increasingly untenable due to whatsapp. Couldn't care less about anything else. (perhaps an alarm clock? but even the dumbest of dumbphones has that)

some of the nokia feature phones have whatsapp, if that interests you.

Not only Whatsapp. Banks in a number of countries are getting rid of passwords, SMS 2FA, or code cards for their online banking. Instead, you either have to use their phone app for online banking, or you have to use the phone app as the second factor for logging into online banking through the browser. A dumbphone won’t suffice.

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