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Comment by caseyy | Hacker News Reader

I threw away my smartphone 4-ish months ago, and I have 50% more motivation, 50% more headspace to focus on things, and 50% better moods most days. The attention economy, especially in social media, is a plague.

It wasn't always this way. I did digital detoxes every few years for about two decades. For most of that time, there were always subtle positive impacts of switching off. But nowadays, the positive effects are not subtle at all. They are very significant.

I am impressed we let a few companies commodify and commercialize human attention and human connection to this degree. Humanity has been done a great disservice in both areas by them. One day, this period of mass harm will be a chapter in history books, I am now convinced.

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What did you replace it with (if you did edit: scratch that, I brain froze and was thinking of "did you replace it with a regular phone") ? Most accounts I read of people ditching their smartphones mentioned they started carrying an ultra light laptop or small candy bar computer (for instance). Basically increasing inconvenience to reduce usage.

you can accomplish a whole lot of the same keeping the phone and deleting all social media apps and accounts (what I did). I still use my phone as a map and camera and many other things … my screentime went from 7+ hours to hardly ever over 40 minutes daily

That's not the point. The focus here is on removing the smartphone out of the system, not removing features from the smartphone.

that is actually not the focus. phones in it of themselves are not actually a problem, what we do with them is. you get phone companies to provide under-16 phones which have ability to call, text, use Map and limited browser capacity and not a single soul would complain about kids having phones on them. not a single soul might be a stretch as of course there’ll always be someone but you get my point…

That is actually the focus of my question and comment:

> > *I threw away my smartphone 4-ish months ago,*

> *What did you replace it with* (if you did edit: scratch that, I brain froze and was thinking of "did you replace it with a regular phone") ? Most accounts I read of people ditching their smartphones mentioned they started carrying an ultra light laptop or small candy bar computer (for instance). Basically increasing inconvenience to reduce usage.

Now if you could stop hijacking the thread and assuming I don't know smartphones can be tweaked that'd be cool.

Turning GrayScale mode on also helps.

Woah I never heard this before. Very novel. Is the theory here the grey scale is less visually stimulating compared to full colour? LOL, it almost makes me wonder if we need a Duplo mode that makes everything crap 8-bit colours and low-res to scare people away from their phones.

That’s a part of the appeal in E-Ink phones.

I keep coming back to the sites on my phone's browser. I have tried using various firewall applications to block network traffic. But it's hilariously easy to get around them.

You can actually disable the browser in a pretty serious way in iOS. First, ask your spouse/friend/colleague to set up parental controls on your phone and have them hold onto the code. Second, remove Safari through Content & Privacy Restrictions. Third, set up Downtime in whitelist mode to run all day. This way, Safari is disabled and an alternative browser cannot be installed from the App Store. If you want full control of your phone back, you'll need to ask your spouse/friend/colleague for the code – totally doable but now it's pretty difficult to get around the restrictions.

Something similar should exist for Android with regard to parental controls. Though for Android, I suppose you could also just uninstall/disable both the browser and the Play Store through adb.

Parental controls on Android are a bit more complicated and require another Google account. I'll take the latter route. I'll just install something like Firefox Focus, which clears browsing data on exit. It will help for one-off searches or an app that launches the browser for some process. I'm not sure if disabling the Play Store is a good idea. It might cause problems with updates. Right?

I don't think a smartphone itself is the issue, but the apps that are on it.

Keep the phone, ditch social media apps/sites.

how do you deal with otp, mfa, mandatory id scans, face scans, compulsory apps, etc.?

Otp and other types of mfa can be done on PC, too.

Mandatory apps (that I am aware of) should also be runnable on your PC using an Android emulation layer.

Mandatory ID and face scans can be done via webcam.

What I am more curious about is how they deal with navigation when traveling. A phone seems like a must-have whenever you are using public transport (e.g. a plane).

> A phone seems like a must-have whenever you are using public transport (e.g. a plane).

It isn't. You can still print your boarding pass (at home in advance or at an airport kiosk). Flight status and gate assignments are posted on screens all over the airport.

I have a phone I set up specifically to disallow content consumption. It has a permanently on Downtime mode (iOS) with only a handful of apps whitelisted – mainly the ones you mentioned. The notifications are disabled, too. I don't have the parental controls passcode, I asked someone else to set it and hold on to it; so it's a lot of effort to bypass the content blocks.

I needed this to ween off social media, scrolling, mindless content consumption, otherwise it was just too convenient and easy to access all that to make the change.

Generally, this phone isn't a problem with regard to social media use or browsing. So it gets used only as a tool, and left in a drawer most of the time. My main phone is a dumbphone but with this second phone, I've not lost access to banking, work apps, etc.

This is slightly crazy, but also "extremely hard-core". I have real respect for your actions. That is some real self-control! You should write a blog post about it and/or do a YouTube documentary. Small joke: David Attenborough can narrate the video.

I really want to do this but there are so many things I need to do that now require a phone- key apps to access doors, concert tickets, etc. are no longer offering a non smartphone alternative.

Well, I think it was mainly the social media, notifications, and content consumption – not so much the smartphone itself. Dumping the smartphone was simply a "cold turkey" solution.

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