Adults and teens turn to 'dumbphones' to cut screen time | Hacker News Reader

Adults and teens turn to 'dumbphones' to cut screen time

bbc.com

27 pointsreqo14 comments

The form factor helps a lot.

What does it say about the underlying issue if they can’t simply use their smartphone like a dumbphone which is certainly possible? I don’t think thats solved. These are people who sound like if there was a bowl of candy they’d have no control not to eat it all or something. Sounds like an issue for the psychologist not a tech issue.

if you have a bowl of candy on your desk, do you eat more or less than usual?

Depends on your own willpower. I imagine if you are one to take more candy than usual if its closer, you also either sleepwalk or even somehow rationalize you getting your candy fix in even if there was no bowl of it. It then becomes a question of discipline or a lack of it, which no doubt might manifest in other aspects of life than this bowl of candy.

If you're exerting willpower to avoid the candy bowl on your desk, you're actively engaging in an activity that occupies some amount of your thoughts and attention. Simply not having it there is strictly better.

I think you're kinda stretching here to make this a moralistic thing, but no matter how much willpower you have it's better not to have the candy there.

> If you're exerting willpower to avoid the candy bowl on your desk, you're actively engaging in an activity that occupies some amount of your time and attention. Simply not having it there is strictly better.

Yep, I totally agree as someone with weak willpower for certain things. I keep temptations and distractions out of my own reach, because then it's easier to not succumb to them. I know my thoughts and habits are irrational to some extent and so I try to work around them.

The point is, the easiest way to keep it out of reach is to literally not have it within reach.

Everyone has finite willpower. Apparently they’d prefer to use some of theirs on things other than constantly minding their smart phone usage.

I'm agreeing with them. I was just saying that what they say corroborates my experience, that it makes the best use of my willpower to keep those things out of reach.

I'm not stretching this to be any one way or another. I'm just suggesting that its treating a symptom and not a root cause. Chances are if you are so predisposed to look at your phone to your detriment, you might have tendencies to do all sorts of similar actions to your detriment. The issue isn't the phone but the habitual tendency of trying to distract ones self from the (likely boring and mandatory) task at hand. If you tackled that issue directly, you wouldn't need a dumb phone, and you'd solve many other issues in your life beyond mere phone overuse I am sure. To me its a sell a man a fish, or teach a man how to fish and hunt and forage, type of situation.

Willpower is essentially made up: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/1/15/16863374/wi...

Dumbphones are so dumb. I just used Apple configurator, installed special profiles that block social network sites / news sites and few addictive apps.

If you want you can block all of appstore, block safari etc.

Why would you block uber on your phone? Also I can still use messenger to chat with my friends and don't have to force them to sms me.

Plus I saved money as I kept my iPhone.

I also can take high quality photos and videos.

I can use google maps.

Dumb phones are dumb. Why on earth would anyone buy one?

Because most people aren't as sophisticated as you

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40622501

> Why on earth would anyone buy one?

For the same reason I, and a lot of other people, chose to not have sweets and snacks at home. Because we like them and if they were available, we would eat them. We know that this is really bad for health and we also know that we have limited willpower to prevent ourselves from reaching for them. So we elect to help make better decision by just not having them around all the time.

I still eat sweets. I just prefer this to be once a week in a form of a good dessert at a good restaurant, right after a good meal.

And if I need a snack I make sure to have plenty of alternative, healthy options available at all times -- mostly fresh fruit and veggies.

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