The science behind an iPhone dumb phone
dumbph.com
dumbph.com
Anyone else the same?
I am also at the point where I leave my phone at home when I go out if I can avoid it. The only times I bring it is if I'm going someplace unfamiliar or if I'm specifically trying to coordinate with someone, and they wouldn't be able to reach me otherwise (such as text someone else that I'm with).
I still find myself scrolling on Twitter longer than I wish I would, but usually after about 5 mins of scrolling, I encounter some bugginess that snaps me out of the loop and helps me question whether or not I really want to be spending my time on the site.
What’s funny is that the bugginess is intentional to try to make you download the app, but it has the opposite effect for me.
Now I just glance at my wrist, decide if I'm going to respond or not (or just reply with "Yes" from my watch), which limits how much I get stuck on my phone. I wish I had self-control to not have to "hack" around it, but alas I don't.
Personally I have some issues with limiting YouTube consumption, but not on the phone, because I don't have YouTube on my phone and using it in the browser sucks. When I've attempted to seek out advise on reducing screen time everything seems to focus on the phone, but the phone isn't an issue for me, because the UI is absolutely terrible for pretty much any activity you could ever imagine. The small screen, touch interface and gestures are enough to keep my phone pretty faraway. I use it for calls and messaging.
It still amazes me that people are willing to do pretty much anything on their phones. So while I have looked into trying to dumb down my iPhone, it didn't seem like it was worth my time.
Direct messaging: WhatsApp is installed and in use, but I disabled notification sounds. Work email is only on my work laptop, personal email is on my phone with notifications off.
That leaves iMessage and Signal with notifications on. I use the former with my wife and the latter with my closest friends. But I still mute my phone during focus work.
I dropped those apps about 8 years ago, but started to do most of my _reading_ on my phone - when I pick up my phone and habitually open something now, it's a book of some sort. It's a good idea to have something to replace habits with, if possible.
If it's really necessary to check Facebook from a phone, then https://mbasic.facebook.com is sufficient.
Everything else can eat shit.
All the other apps, especially chat apps (including family if it's not urgent) are muted, and the mute slider is nailed down so it can't move accidentally.
That should solve 90% of the problem. Even doomscrolling if you ask me, because if the doomscroll app doesn't notify you, you'll forget about it. At first rarely, but more and more often in time.
The "Personal" focus allows call and message notifications only from a set list of contacts and apps which are mostly OS-level (alarms, calendar, etc) and the chat app I use to talk to my wife and a couple important friends.
The "Work" focus allows call and message notifications from anyone, and the above app list plus some work-related apps (e.g., Slack).
From time to time if I'm waiting on a notification (e.g., the teleheath app to start an appointment) I'll just turn focus mode off and deal with the firehose until I see the one I need.
Doing it this way I can have the apps available so I can easily use the service/product _when I want to_, but it's never forcing itself in front of my face.
I really don't know how people use their phones otherwise. There's so. much. noise.
- a simple phone with SMS
- a desk computer in the living room for internet and email, shared between everyone
- a camera
- an ebook reader (or just books and newspaper)
And banking apps.
Music player.
Computers are nothing but free software. Had a mobile phone (a flip-phone with real buttons) for years but never used it, and just let it lapse, as being unnecessary. Never understood why so many folks bought into being abused by their handheld pocket computers, and paying for the "privilege." Anyone who gives MS/Apple/Google/Amazon (the evil MAGA) money is being an enabler for the abuse of others.
Not sure how long I'll keep it like that, but I think I'll leave it for now as I've been trying to minimize my phone for a while now (biggest difference was removing social media apps and disabling most notifications). If you're a busy person with a lot of demands on your attention, I highly recommend it.
To do this, go in Settings, then `Accessibility > Color and motion > Color correction`, and set it to grayscale.
While still in the `Color correction` submenu, click `Color correction shortcut`, set it to `Hold both volume keys`, and toggle it on.
I just discovered this myself, but with the ability to quickly flip it off when needed (taking pictures/watching videos/etc) I may actually end up keeping it enabled this time around.
If you want to play around with the other options (or permanently set greyscale), it’s under Settings —> Accessibility —> Display and Text Size —> Color Filters. Or just search Color Filters from the main Settings search bar.
Color Filters also has a true no blue mode for night.
Setting -> Accessibility Display & Text Size Colour Filters
edit: Shoulda refreshed before I commented...
Turn that on and then you can select "Greyscale" as an option. I have this mapped to the double tap the back of the phone with an accessibility shortcut.
Basically I can double tap the back to toggle greyscale mode.
I deleted all social media apps years ago.
I’m doing fine most days.
I never liked any apps on the screen when I had Android, and liked (and still like) its swipe-for-app-drawer mechanism. It’s unfortunate that on iOS it’s more difficult to have a clean Home Screen, and no options that I’m aware of to get the Android launcher actions.
1. Hard reset your iPhone
2. Remove Safari and AppStore (via Settings -> Screentime restrictions -> Content & Privacy Restrictions) and have someone trusted set a Screen Time password.
That's all. You still have weather reports, agendas, alarm clocks, maps, translators, phone+messenger, email, a music player, a camera, but zero time wasters. With this setup you can give an iPhone to a 6 year old with zero anxiety about "screen time" (which in reality is really internet time: disable internet access and they're bored with the phone in less than a day).
Pretty much everything that we tell ourselves we really need instantly are lies: almost nothing is really so time sensitive that it can't wait till you're behind a desktop/laptop.
I want to have maps, whatsapp, chatgpt, a document scanner, my banking app, a guitar tuner... these are tools.
So I need both an app whitelist (there are only so many apps that I actually use on my phone) and a website blacklist (no more HN, reddit, twitter, facebook, news websites, etc). I can use those on my computer but it won't be a mindless scroll whenever I have 5 minutes.
Unfortunately I don't think this is feasible on iOS (I have tried Opal but it was so buggy I gave up). A custom Android launcher seems promising, but I have not found how to install a system wide firewall yet. Maybe creating a custom Android OS is the only way to have enough control?
Then you set everything up: You install the desired apps on the main phone. You prevent installation of additional apps through parent phone. You blacklist all addictive websites.
(You can also block all preinstalled apps, in my case I had to block the browser app from Samsung, because the family link app does not restrict this browser it can only restrict chrome)
I ended up with a very watertight dumb phone. One goal was also to prevent any access to porn through the phone. This is also a process, because sometimes you find new ways to access such content despite the google family filters. Then you just blacklist those additional ways.
What I still have:
WhatsApp (people suggest sometimes to just use a feature phone or light phone, but this is not an option because at least in europe you need whats app, else you are excluded from social life)
Spotify
Phone
SMS
Chrome (blocked: news, porn, online shops)
App for Public Transportation
Maps
Notes
Camera
Banking
I can also recommend the "Olauncher" launcher.
It is meant for elderly or people with disabilities. You can specify which apps to show in a simple grid, no access to any settings and dumbed down rights for the apps. Exiting the assistive access mode requires a 4-digit PIN. You can ask a friend to set the pin for you and write it down on a piece of paper store it in a safe space, or use an online time-lock service [1].
This is NOT the parental control mode where you need to setup stuff from another iCloud account.
[0]: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/assistive-access-iphon...
You do indeed need a trusted person to set a Screen Time Passcode and keep it safe.
A website blacklist is pretty easy with the parental controls on most smartphones these days. Unless you're like me and you just disable the whitelist when it slightly inconveniences you :) I guess a better option would be to use a really low-spec smartphone, like the Cat S22 Flip, so that you can browse the web but it's really painful and less habit-forming. I used the S22 for a while and did kill my smartphone habit. The only problem was that it would crash randomly, which isn't acceptable for me. No silver bullet I'm afraid.
1. Being pulled IN to apps and my phone through notifications
Solutions for me:
- Disabling notifications mostly (minus important ones like Uber arriving)
- Customizing Personal focus mode so only family can reach me and keeping phone in this mode by default
2. Being bored in line or while waiting somewhere, so I open Mail or Safari app to click common news / community websites.
Solution for me:
- Clearing history / browser cache from time to time so I have to manually type in these websites. A bit more friction.
- Deleting YouTube or other unlimited content websites but keeping high quality leisure apps (Kindle or Podcasts)
For me, grayscale didn't work
I'm on the computer or iPad a lot, but when I close the lid, I'm in the real world, like the old days. Highly recommend.
(It does help to have burners though, because you do require them on occasion)
You can set up greyscale in the Accessibility settings.
But say, what happened to Ubuntu? I haven't used desktop linux in quite a few years (in spite of doing headless linux projects 2/3 of the time), now I have a project that requires that I see the desktop and it feels... spammy. What's with all those notifications and auto downloading of updates? Do they want to remind me why my main desktop is a Mac?
Between telemetry enabled by default, pushing everything to Snap, and their brief “let’s send searches to Amazon” experiment, it’s a no from me. I’m not a purist who refuses to use non-free things, but I don’t particularly like being herded towards a single way of doing something (Snap). systemd is nearly at my breaking point as it is.
...and much harder to make it notify in exactly the way you want, to make it run what you want, to customize system behaviors. Taming user-hostile applications is a completely different experience to running things that aren't hostile in the first place.
> But say, what happened to Ubuntu?
tbh it completely left my mind about a decade ago. I don't see any reason to use it over, say, Debian these days.
Disagree here. Might be because I just turn off all notifications. Basically I answer 'no' on the first run of any new app.
> to make it run what you want
Agree. The EU may force them to accept proper sideloading one day, but this is a topic for another flame war.
- writing everything in lowercase - helps reduce depression and anxiety
Or are you just making fun of the article's lowercase titles?