2. Try to replace parts of your smartphone with other things. Buying a clock helped me fix the habit of "I just opened my eyes, time for phone". I found my old PSP and I'm planning to run some emulator on that instead of phone to play some minigames.
3. I have my phone always completely silent. There's literally no notification that cannot wait until I decide to check the phone.
4. I sometimes turn off the data transfer in my phone. First, I get less notifications. Second, it's yet another barrier and it gives me a second to ask myself "do I really want to play with my phone now".
The "jelly star" phone looks kind of fun. I just sat in a busy tram and wondered what the scene would look like if we all had phones like that. It's an innteresting thought experiment.
I think the biggest difference is actually the lack of newspapers now. Plenty of people were plugged into headphones via iPod/Walkman/whatever was era appropriate. The people who stare at their phones today were staring at newspapers in the pre smartphone era.
People with headphones looking absentmindedly straight ahead doing their best not to focus on anything, isolating themselves as much as possible to make the complete lack of personal space more bearable.
This is already what crowded subways in my city look like when you pass the threshold where people are too cramped to browse their phones. This is not a bad thing, just a coping mechanism.
I think there is much more room for behavior change if you consider people at a table (coffee or restaurant) with and without phones suitable for continuous media consumption or social network interactions.
So it's only a tiny barrier but if you need it, you turn on wifi sharing and take out the "real" phone. Otherwise it stays unconnected.
I learned to drive with paper maps and have never really made much use of GPS navigation, so that part was easier for me than it might be for most.
I'm not going to get rid of my phone entirely, but after that experience, I feel like not carrying it all the time anymore.
Not sure what solutions exist on Android but I'd be amazed if there are none.
Don't forget about the other stuff usually handled by smartphones, like music (my old Sansa Clip+ still works) or GPS (the one in my car will do).
[0] - Call audio was pristine
[1] - large live tile for SMS was great
[2] - Bundled HERE Drive let you pre download map data long before competitors had the option.
look at maps only in the car, mute whatsapp and then check it from time to time.
seems pretty straightforward.
There's an app for Android called "Forest" that gamifies not using your phone: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cc.forestapp