I was addicted to my smartphone, so I switched to a flip phone for a month | Hacker News Reader

I was addicted to my smartphone, so I switched to a flip phone for a month

nytimes.com

34 pointsaxiomdata31650 comments

I guess my question is, addicted to what? A smartphone is a Swiss Army knife, it can do anything. Addicted to social media? I can see that. Addicted to real time communication, like texting? Or watching videos? Reading?

That’s like saying, I’m addicted to my car, so I used a horse and buggy for a month.

What’s the maladaptive use case that we see with phones? Maybe it differs person-to-person. My time on my phone is spent checking work emails throughout the day, personal emails maybe once a day, making/receiving several phone calls, text messaging, and reading dozens of articles a day (and skimming hundreds more) ok topics I find personally interesting and relevant to my work. And passively consuming TikTok as I would consume television (as in, not in a way that would ordinarily be construed as social media).

Each of those tasks could be done by other devices, and each task in isolation isn’t problematic. But put them all together and it’s a problem because the device is in my pocket?

I would be tempted by something like the Light Phone if I could still use it to message people with WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. almost nobody I know uses SMS these days. I do agree that, often times, my iPhone is an undesirable distraction.

Edit: I guess the Yubico Authenticator is a requirement these days as well

Your comment made me wonder if it would be possible to develop an app for light phone, like a basic telegram client. And I found this:

https://medium.com/sanctuary-computer-inc/building-lightos-w...

It’s totally based on React native. Bizarre! Not at all what I expected.

I figured it would be running some low power board that’s cheap and abundant. But no, it runs a fork of Android on a Qualcomm snapdragon MSM8909. I think I expected something with around half the horsepower.

Given the features this seems like overkill, but I suppose this made it so they didn’t need to reinvent a bunch of phone wheels.

I’ve been seeing a lot of ads for those Gabb phones for kids, and while I don’t know if they are any good, they do look more like the right concept. They are very smartphone-like.

Still, I’d say just use screen time, MDM, parental controls. Have someone else you know set the pin. Lacking access to an Android or iOS device basically excludes you from modern life.

> Lacking access to an Android or iOS device basically excludes you from modern life.

As someone who made this transition a while ago i can only say that i enjoy the experience. Modern life - in my opinion - is a sickness.

> Lacking access to an Android or iOS device basically excludes you from modern life.

No, but it does free you from some of the most noxious and time-wasting aspects of modern life.

I bought one and it’s awesome. Until Verizon royally fucked me by locking my sim by mistake and customer service taking 12 hours to resolve it. (The Verizon store couldn’t help me either).

I’d love to try and get mine reactivated again.

> nobody I know uses SMS these days

Pro tip: Everyone can still receive your SMS, and respond to it. Which app they'll use for that is unknown to me as I've never[0] used a smartphone.

[0] Qualification seems to be needed: I've used several, and even developed apps and tested for a multitude of models. So that was misleading. Sorry. What this should have read was: "I've never used a smartphone as my own personal "daily driver" phone (only for work)"

SMS is insecure so it’s smart to not use it. The dumbphone OSs aren’t as open as I would like to see otherwise an XMPP and/or Matrix client should have anyone covered while giving them a secure & federated/self-hostable communication option without the corporate lock-in/spying/giving data to the feds.

Punkt's phone has Signal support, fwiw

Eink phones might be a good option

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZROIjvbICA

Or, delete the addictive apps, which is what I did. Works like a charm.

The killer for me is the web browser, that’s how I access Reddit on my phone these days and it can be a big time sink…

I hear Reddit is actually working to help people cut down usage. Worked really well for me. I'm down to 0 hours.

Whether it's their goal or not, they're succeeding at it well. The number of people I know that gave up and never looked back after they blocked third party clients is quite a bit above zero.

Even inspired one group I interact with to bring back a BBS as an alternative.

Could you elaborate? What are they doing?

I mostly use it using third party app. I can't do it anymore, so my usage is also down to almost 0 hours.

if android, blockada has host block feature (similar to editing/blocking via host file on PC)

I know a lot of folks that get this by avoiding device upgrades. If you’re living off of an iPhone 7 with an old os and a brand new battery it’s amazing the things you can’t get addicted to while also still being able to have the modern text and calling capabilities.

Hopefully these people aren't keyholders at any important organizations.

These people make the phone that’s probably in your pocket

An alternative on Android is to hide the app from the drawer. If you have to dig thru Settings > Apps > ProprietaryTimeWaster, you will find you only use it when you really need to. That’s how I basically stopped using Facebook a few years back.

Or, you know, self control. Otherwise it's just a matter of time 'till something else takes the place of your phone.

(I'm ready for the downvotes)

One assists with the other. Alcoholics do better when there's no alcohol in the house

Anyone that's addicted to their smartphone needs to put their phone in their pocket for an entire lunch break and use the time to observe others using their smartphones - it's a bad look.

Optics wise, staring down at a tiny screen and repeatedly poking at it doesn't look good and regardless of what you're actually doing many people are going to assume you're wasting time with something like Facebook, Candy Crush or just browsing porn.

I did this for 3 years and reluctantly got a smartphone again after service / voice issues on my dumbphone. Critically, my dumb phone had no browser at all but could hotspot. I would bring my laptop if I knew I needed connectivity. The phone could only do phone calls and SMS/MMS.

I think the long period of actual inability to use apps was extremely helpful in breaking the habit. When I got a smartphone again I immediately uninstalled/disabled all apps including the browser and have had no desire to enable them. It's effectively a dumbphone but with hardware/software that is reliable and a good camera.

It was inconvenient but I came to appreciate it even the inconveniences for the reconnection with the world. For example, I planned a motorcycle route and printed/memorized the directions. It made the trip more enjoyable using my navigation skills and not hearing a a digital voice giving me directions.

I used a Jethro SC490 for those that are interested, it lasted a few years and a replacement battery is cheap.

I'd love to have a low-cost, low-end phone that can just handle basic communication requirements. However, life has changed so much over the past two decades that I believe it's no longer possible to live our lives without a smartphone and without serious compromises.

There are just too many basic necessities that require a smartphone these days, starting with multi-factor authentication apps, cab booking and navigation. In my country, government services, banking and financial services can work to some extent without an app, but it is becoming increasingly impractical to hold out.

Banks have replaced physical 2FA tokens with new features in their banking apps. The financial services I use require me to authenticate via faceID on my phone for specific transactions. Our government services use a biometric authentication scheme - not mandatory but it is terribly inconvenient to get your work done if you don't have a smart phone.

It's reached a point where I cannot function normally beyond a week or so, without a smart phone and relevant financial, government, and other apps.

My wife has a smart phone. I do not. I can say that so far, in Sweden, it's not necessary to have a smart phone, but it is growing harder.

The one time a client required MFA they had me install an app for my laptop + SMS.

The local cab company (I live in a small city) accepts phone calls and has a web interface.

The few times I've visited another city without my wife in the last few years, I used a paper map. Paper maps are getting harder to find.

I can access government services and banking via BankID, which exists as a desktop app. I've also found that some places don't fully support using BankID, over the smart phone version "Mobile BankID". In one case where we had to sign things jointly, I had to log in with BankID then have her confirm with Mobile BankID, because the other way around does not work.

To log into the bank, I have a physical authenticator, and I see the bank staff use a physical authenticator internally for their operations, so I do not think that will be changing soon. I suspect that companies also use a physical authenticator to log in, so that access is gated on easily observable possession rather than on personal or corporate smart phones.

What's getting more difficult is minor money transactions. Many people use "Swish", a mobile payment system and don't carry or use cash, and Swish is also common at smaller businesses. My barber, for instance, got rid of his card terminal in favor of Swish, though he does accept cash. I wonder when I'll have to deal with a "Swish-only / no cash" event.

I can see that parking is increasingly hard to do without a smart phone, as the payment points are being removed in favor of a sign telling people to use the app.

OTOH, my wife is getting annoyed how Google wants her to do 2FA verification. She's logged into several devices, including tablets for the kids. Yesterday the 4 year old wanted help opening the Google Video app, which for some reason wanted 2FA verification saying it was a new device. I could not provide it, but luckily my wife was also home and could deal with it. Still, that situation has clearly gotten a bit worse for us, and there's no solution where our baby sitter could have resolved it were she alone with the kids.

(To make things more annoying, Google was trying to send the verification to an old tablet, which we rarely use because of a cracked screen and nearly zero battery life. She was able to go in via her phone and figure it out instead.)

I used a feature phone for several years, and held on to it for as long as possible. It was based on KaiOS (formerly FirefoxOS) and in fact, a neighbor of mine had a very similar phone that included an app store. Mine didn't, but still integrated with Google properties such as Mail and Calendar. Not very well.

It did include a web browser, and I could visit web pages using mobile data or WiFi. The browser was very limited but usable, with some zooming and panning available.

I appreciated the constraints and security of that sort of phone, but once I upgraded to a smartphone I was immediately addicted.

There’s been a Python issue tho where 2.x has been where a lot of apps are but is based on a 2016 version of Fx. A lot of services probably forgot that they supported KaiOS & when they heard 3.x, despite the upgrade process not being too bad, a lot of apps dropped out support for the platform. The 3.x devices are also much more difficult to root/mod which removes the cool hacker scene of 2.x or Linux/Android.

I’d love to do something like this but the problem is the cameras on this type of phone are all dreadful.

I think there’s a (small) gap in the market here for folks who want only basic messaging and music plus a great camera.

Apple’s assistive access got most of the way there but then they removed all the functionality apart from the shutter button from the camera :(

Not the same as the fliphone solution and won't allow messaging, but you can use lockmeout.online to create a random phone unlock code with a specified timelock. Carrying around a locked phone without knowledge of the unlock code still allows you to use the camera, take incoming calls, and everything you can do via Siri (i.e. make outgoing calls). But its meant more for short-term distraction-free durations (days, not months).

Disclaimer: That service is a non-commercial side-project of mine.

Every time I see this type of article my immediate response is to ignore it. Delete the addictive apps and enable parental controls on yourself. The software features are there. Use them instead of typing editorials for internet traffic.

Oh and another bonus would be being able to turn it off and on using shortcuts which isn’t possible at the moment.

for a more expensive alternative to limit smartphone use, i bought an apple watch ultra, turned off notifs, and it cut down my phone screen time down by ~80% pretty much overnight. basically just keep my phone in another room for most of the day and night (watch works great as an alarm clock)

Disabling notifications using Before Launcher and quitting social media solves most smartphone addiction. The rest is solved by apps that lock other apps after X minutes of use, and a little intentionality

I used a Hisense eink phone with refresh rate just not servicable enough to want to fuckaroundistis on the phone. Wish eink on back like Yota form factor amde it.

Green text bubble? Non starter for most under 30.

I don’t have any social media apps, but hacker news and similar “social sites” are a problem.

My screentime is insane at like 8 hrs a day, usually in a web browser. But I’ve had an internet addiction probably since i discovered gopher, freeware ftp sites, and CU-SeeMe.

CU-SeeMe, hadn't thought about that in some time. I still have a T-Shirt they sent out as a prize for innovative applications (mine was an observer for autonomous robotics experiments)

> Green text bubble? Non starter for most under 30.

American?

I live in a country where SMS/iMessage/RCS are primary comms and it's rarely if ever brough up or an issue.

Most under 30 in your specific network.

It's a super common social problem I'm currently scratching my head over myself while holding three phones every day, but it's not everywhere.

Pihole, block all the sites you're addicted to, have someone else set the password.

only 8 hours a day? that's actually pretty good.

That’s my PHONE screentime. My work is a PC so probably 16 hours of “screen” time vs Screentime(tm)

Work done on a PC is typically much more efficient than work done on a smartphone.

Wait people seriously have 8+ hours on their phone in a given day?

If you count audiobooks and music, sure.

audio playing with locked screen doesn't count as screen time

Switch to a Princess phone and you’ll be amazed.

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