I found this article fascinating. I've recently been on a mission to cut out mindless scrolling, texting, and notification-distraction from my life, because I realised how badly it was impacting...
I found this article fascinating. I've recently been on a mission to cut out mindless scrolling, texting, and notification-distraction from my life, because I realised how badly it was impacting my life. And it had destroyed my attention span.
I clicked on this link pretty prejudiced about getting any meaningful life advice from the habits of A-list celebrities, but I was surprised.
I recently read a long and torturous book by a tech commentator and artist about disconnecting. At the end of it all, their advice was 'replace your phone with birdwatching'. They also acknowledged, in a small way, that they were privileged to be able to just do nothing, whereas most people couldn't afford to (financially or socially). It left me infuriated. Of course we'd all like to sit around doing nothing all day and watching birds, or whatever our version of that is. But we fucking can't! We're not Bay Area artists-in-residence who get paid to tell other people in tech that tech can be a bit bad for us.
I got more out of this short article than I did that long, drawn-out series of essays. For those of us who do have to do things like banking, read emails, and would very much like to stay in touch with our connected social circles, this was actual, practical advice.
Boiled down, it's simple. Use it, but be aware of how you use it. Not being able to carry it everywhere with you, at every second, and be drawn in by those dopamine hits of notifications, likes, and replies, is a good strategy.
I think this article lays out a good middle path between cabin-in-the-woods and just abandoning yourself to the inevitability of having your attention dragged away by the attention economy. Hope some of you enjoy reading it.
Im happy if I can just convince everyone to put our phones down during a face to face family visit. Geez, its hard though. One person's phone dings and everyone feels justified pulling out their...
Im happy if I can just convince everyone to put our phones down during a face to face family visit. Geez, its hard though. One person's phone dings and everyone feels justified pulling out their phones while the first person checks the notification. We're ridiculously Pavlovian.
One small tip. I had to reset my phone recently and the only social app I use is instagram. This time i didn't gave permission for notifications and didn't put it on my home screen. I'm using way...
One small tip. I had to reset my phone recently and the only social app I use is instagram. This time i didn't gave permission for notifications and didn't put it on my home screen.
One feature I want on phones is a way to only allow certain notifications through. On a delivery app, I want notifications for when the driver arrives, but I don't want to hear about coupons at...
One feature I want on phones is a way to only allow certain notifications through. On a delivery app, I want notifications for when the driver arrives, but I don't want to hear about coupons at local restaurants.
I wish that I could allow notifications that were important, but block the advertisements.
This already exists, but business won't do it the rght way because why do it? You can turn certain notification channels off, but the app has to respect those channels.
This already exists, but business won't do it the rght way because why do it?
You can turn certain notification channels off, but the app has to respect those channels.
At least on iOS there is no default categorization of notifications by how critical they are to the app. The one place I think forcing companies to categorize notifications into app critical and...
At least on iOS there is no default categorization of notifications by how critical they are to the app. The one place I think forcing companies to categorize notifications into app critical and advertisements could work is on Apple devices.
If Apple gave users a way to report "spam" notifications, they could moderate the apps. Apple already takes down apps for breaking their app store guidelines, so this could just be an additional guideline to follow.
The "real-time" category was supposed to fix this issue but they get around it by saying "this coupon will expire in an hour" and now it's considered real-time. Live activities actually improved...
The "real-time" category was supposed to fix this issue but they get around it by saying "this coupon will expire in an hour" and now it's considered real-time.
Live activities actually improved the situation for me. I just disable notifications entirely and then if I order something the progress is up at the top.
If you're on Android, I recommend BuzzKill to manage notifications. I use it to silence and batch news notifications during the working day, and also to not vibrate my phone if someone is sending...
If you're on Android, I recommend BuzzKill to manage notifications. I use it to silence and batch news notifications during the working day, and also to not vibrate my phone if someone is sending a bunch of texts in a short space of time.
There's a lot more customisation available and I think Tasker integration.
This sums it up pretty well, though it is hard to do in practice. If you are old enough, you might remember that going "on the Internet" was a conscious deliberate decision. Had to turn on the...
It’s not about ditching technology, just about doing technology on purpose.
This sums it up pretty well, though it is hard to do in practice. If you are old enough, you might remember that going "on the Internet" was a conscious deliberate decision. Had to turn on the computer, dial up with the modem, browse the web, do emails and whatever, and then shut it down again.
Smartphones changed all that. And while my personal self control isn't anywhere near perfect, I do try to set time for specific things. Like check RSS feeds, Facebook and emails, and then leave the phone with only notifications for incoming calls and the like. Screen Time and the like helps with this, but it is not perfect, and I am still struggling with wanting to check my phone for completely non-urgent stuff all the time.
Something that's been a source of friction with some of my younger friends is that they're used to being always online from growing up with smartphones, and thus expect people to respond to them...
Something that's been a source of friction with some of my younger friends is that they're used to being always online from growing up with smartphones, and thus expect people to respond to them immediately pretty much whenever and get impatient when they don't. I'm only a few years older than them, but I remember when I was younger, you'd talk to your friends while you were both on the computer, and when you/they logged off MSN Messenger or AIM or whatever, that was it - if you wanted to keep talking, you called them or waited to see them at school the next day. I don't like the idea of being constantly reachable so I've limited a lot of that in my life. My parents, brother, and partner are the only people I get priority notifications from; everyone else can wait. There's a lot of sites I only check on my computer now, partly because of this but also partly because I hate using a device as small as a phone for long-form typing and such.
Similarly, a big thing that's helped me is that my laptop doesn't live on my desk. It's stored away on top of a little shelving unit under my desk. Having it there means "going on the computer" is an intentional activity again, rather than something I do out of habit because my computer is right there when I sit at my desk and then I end up wasting time on it instead of doing what I intended to do when I sit down.
Cal Newport calls this the "overactive hive mind." It's a real challenge, even with older generations at work for me. A middle ground I found was using office hours where I am this available for a...
expect people to respond to them immediately pretty much whenever and get impatient when they don't.
Cal Newport calls this the "overactive hive mind." It's a real challenge, even with older generations at work for me. A middle ground I found was using office hours where I am this available for a specific time each day. If that doesn't work, then it's scheduling a meeting.
The third space community locations are what I miss. Being able to turn off technology is great if you have a geographical location that has consistent groups of people you know. It's hard to plan or find out what to do with others as everything is planned online for the most part.
Ooh, I haven’t considered that before — being able to physically put away the computer because it’s a laptop! I’ve been tossing up what my next computer might be (tossing up getting Linux, but...
Similarly, a big thing that's helped me is that my laptop doesn't live on my desk. It's stored away on top of a little shelving unit under my desk. Having it there means "going on the computer" is an intentional activity again, rather than something I do out of habit because my computer is right there when I sit at my desk
Ooh, I haven’t considered that before — being able to physically put away the computer because it’s a laptop! I’ve been tossing up what my next computer might be (tossing up getting Linux, but I’ve never touched it before so I’m not sure…), because I’m pretty sure I want to move away from Windows with all their in-OS advertising ramping up all over the place, but maybe I also need to consider the form factor too! Being able to just put my computer away would free up my desk to be used for other stuff, and that might be a positive change to consider!
I have often wanted to go phoneless over the past few years, and I like a lot of the ideas described in this article. Creating dedicated computing locations seems like a good way to use psychology...
I have often wanted to go phoneless over the past few years, and I like a lot of the ideas described in this article. Creating dedicated computing locations seems like a good way to use psychology to link activities to spaces. It's certainly worked for me: having a dedicated office room in my home has given me no end of mental space and clarity. Once the door closes, I'm done for the day.
I already do a lot to curtail how demanding my phone is. Most modern versions of mobile OSes have a lot of good features for managing your relationship with your phone. I strongly recommend to everyone that they make use of those features if they are trying to cut down on their phone use. Give yourself time limits for addicting apps, stop notifications coming through or making noises at certain times of (or all) day, prevent low-stakes/non-urgent group chats or apps from notifying at all. There are a wealth of options available on the devices we already have, but they seem to be reserved and marketed only for "power users" rather than anyone who wants to have a healthier relationship with their device.
I actually tried going semi-phoneless and using the Light Phone 2. I made it a few months before it just started to get annoying for me. The keyboard is very difficult to use, so when you are...
I actually tried going semi-phoneless and using the Light Phone 2. I made it a few months before it just started to get annoying for me. The keyboard is very difficult to use, so when you are texting, it just feels like you can't keep up with the pace of the conversation. The microphone and speaker are also not very good, so phone calls do not work well.
The Light Phone 2 seems like it's a phone that is bad, but it parades it as a feature. I like the philosophy behind it, but a phone really needs to be able to do the core phone tasks well even if it doesn't have extra features.
I wish that carriers would let you have two phones that share the same phone number. I would love to have a second phone that is much less functional that I could switch out with a smartphone as needed. Sometimes bringing a smartphone is unnecessary, but other times it's basically required. As of now, my options are carry a smartphone or become totally disconnected.
Light Phone seems cool on paper, but in the real world it would just isolate me. Whatsapp is big in Brazil. Every person and business uses it. I wouldn't be able to do my job without.
Light Phone seems cool on paper, but in the real world it would just isolate me.
Whatsapp is big in Brazil. Every person and business uses it. I wouldn't be able to do my job without.
I know some phones have started selling "No SIM" as a feature, but this ability is part of the allure of using sim cards. The SIM card is your link to the carrier, so whatever phone it is in is...
I wish that carriers would let you have two phones that share the same phone number.
I know some phones have started selling "No SIM" as a feature, but this ability is part of the allure of using sim cards. The SIM card is your link to the carrier, so whatever phone it is in is the phone that has your number.
I don't think I could live with Light Phone right now (I basically use discord as my primary communication method with 90% of the people I talk to), but I'm definitely excited for further...
I don't think I could live with Light Phone right now (I basically use discord as my primary communication method with 90% of the people I talk to), but I'm definitely excited for further iterations. Really, if they just had discord and a bit better refresh rate, I'd be all in.
That's a doable thing, though it's usually an added expense to do that, and it's usually not available from the cariers directly unless you are a large enterprise. The easiest way for an average...
I wish that carriers would let you have two phones that share the same phone number
That's a doable thing, though it's usually an added expense to do that, and it's usually not available from the cariers directly unless you are a large enterprise. The easiest way for an average person would be to use a VoIP service.
There are a number of other providers who can do all of this much easier, like RingCentral or Google Voice. Though to be fair they do have downsides like higher than necessary pricing or being a...
There are a number of other providers who can do all of this much easier, like RingCentral or Google Voice. Though to be fair they do have downsides like higher than necessary pricing or being a Google service.
Wait, you can’t just swap over the SIM card from one phone to another? I get that it takes a few minutes to swap it over and have the new phone register with the cell towers, but I didn’t realise...
Wait, you can’t just swap over the SIM card from one phone to another? I get that it takes a few minutes to swap it over and have the new phone register with the cell towers, but I didn’t realise other countries had more barriers than that?
You can do that in some cases, but newer phones are moving to eSIM. My iPhone 15 Pro Max doesn’t have a physical SIM. It’s possible to have a carrier assign 2 phone numbers to a single phone, but...
You can do that in some cases, but newer phones are moving to eSIM. My iPhone 15 Pro Max doesn’t have a physical SIM.
It’s possible to have a carrier assign 2 phone numbers to a single phone, but not a single phone number to 2 phones.
It would be nice to decide whether you want to take a smartphone or flip phone as you walk out the door and have call and text history synced correctly on both.
Oh, I didn’t realise newer iPhones were doing away with the SIM card — I’ve got the iPhone SE which has the option for eSIM but still has the physical SIM drawer too. I’m currently running it in...
Oh, I didn’t realise newer iPhones were doing away with the SIM card — I’ve got the iPhone SE which has the option for eSIM but still has the physical SIM drawer too.
I’m currently running it in dual mode (two separate numbers, one physical SIM and one eSIM, with different providers) and my physical SIM provider doesn’t yet offer eSIM. I’m in luck that Apple hasn’t done away with physical SIM slot in Australia yet, even for the iPhone 15, but if/when they do, I’m hoping Australian mobile service providers will have caught up by then.
A phone is what keeps me organized. Luckily, or unluckily, I don't have a high volume of texts or calls, and am not distracted by that. But until I'm done for the day, I use it for doing what I...
A phone is what keeps me organized. Luckily, or unluckily, I don't have a high volume of texts or calls, and am not distracted by that. But until I'm done for the day, I use it for doing what I want to do.
In the past I would go more places without it, but there are a few reasons I don't anymore:
2FA. I can't use a computer without also having a phone with me.
If I have an idea while I'm walking or something, I don't want to be separated from my organizational device, and forget to put it in my calendar later, or never send the email, etc.
So yeah I don't know. I don't usually feel like I use my phone too much?
I turn wifi and 5G off on my phone when I leave work and am not on call. I turn it back on when I get to work. Everyone knows they can call or text me if needed, and that I'd much rather they call...
I turn wifi and 5G off on my phone when I leave work and am not on call. I turn it back on when I get to work.
Everyone knows they can call or text me if needed, and that I'd much rather they call to have a chat than get an impersonal message.
I don't live with beeps and boops drawing my attention away from those around me, or my own personal space all the time.
i am confused about the effect of this. With those off, do you have calls and texts, but no apps? Do you use your phone for things like organization/planning or calendaring? Could you say more...
I turn wifi and 5G off on my phone
i am confused about the effect of this. With those off, do you have calls and texts, but no apps? Do you use your phone for things like organization/planning or calendaring? Could you say more about the details and the effect it has on you?
I have calls, texts, can take pictures or videos and sync with cloud services later. No emails, no messenger apps, no alerts, no news, no tracking. No music, no podcasts, no streaming, no videos....
I have calls, texts, can take pictures or videos and sync with cloud services later.
No emails, no messenger apps, no alerts, no news, no tracking. No music, no podcasts, no streaming, no videos. No news, no social media scrolling, no tracking no recommendations.
You can choose to have offline alerts from your calendar or not. I have those off. I can always choose to go to a computer, or go online to check email, news, whatever actively. Then go about my day later.
The greatest effect is that you are off when you're not working. That you are in the moment, and not constantly thinking about the vibrations in your pocket. Kids, people, if you watch a movie, you're right then and there.
If whatever I'm watching can't keep my interest enough to put the phone away, maybe I shouldn't be wasting my time on watching it?
I can have automated messages on email to text me if something requires a prompt response. Customers and colleagues alike know not to misuse it, and aren't scared of sending me a message if something should be done soon.
I can time outgoing emails to always be sent within office hours in a lame attempt to let others escape the terrorization of alerts from me at least.
I have free time that's my own time. My employer pays me for my time and doesn't get hours and hours for free, just checking stuff.
That's interesting. By the time I left my last job, I still technically had email and slack for work on it, but the notifications dialed down to zero outside work hours (unless someone pushed a...
That's interesting. By the time I left my last job, I still technically had email and slack for work on it, but the notifications dialed down to zero outside work hours (unless someone pushed a notification in slack, which was rare unless there was a real emergency). I think my distractions on my phone are not work related anymore, but I spent a lot of time in therapy over the last few years to address my unhealthy attitudes toward work life balance.
Startup culture (or maybe American culture, but startups are worse) has really created a distorted view of work: work is your life, the thing you are supposed to devote yourself to (a very convenient attitude for the company). For personal reasons, I would like to find part time work, but talking recruiters or interviewing, it seems that any conversation that starts with placing limits of any kind on your time working (even for less money) is already anathema.
As much as I would love to be able to ditch my phone when I am not at work, being on call makes that more or less impossible. For those who also work on call, have you been able to ditch your...
As much as I would love to be able to ditch my phone when I am not at work, being on call makes that more or less impossible. For those who also work on call, have you been able to ditch your phone? Or lead a phone-lite life? If so, please guide me. I'd love some help.
I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but I find it useful to embrace notifications by customizing ringtone alerts for as many apps as I can. This creates two layers of prioritization in my...
I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but I find it useful to embrace notifications by customizing ringtone alerts for as many apps as I can. This creates two layers of prioritization in my experience. For example, I can hear if the notif is coming from different emails or from text message vs. work messenger vs. social media DM. If I'm super busy, I might ignore everything else except the work sound. But I can also check the notification banner without unlocking my phone to make sure there isn't a personal emergency to attend to. Conversely, I might decide that now is a good time to goof around! 😝
I heard about a hospital that got rid of pagers and moved to an app where doctors could receive photos and messages about each specific issue, but the sender could see if they read their message....
I heard about a hospital that got rid of pagers and moved to an app where doctors could receive photos and messages about each specific issue, but the sender could see if they read their message. Many did not like it because they enjoyed the discretion they had in how they wanted to respond to a page.
Maybe what you need a separate flip phone for being on call. You can get calls and texts from work, but you can leave the rest of your distractions behind on your main phone. I know it's cheaper for a business to just call you on your personal phone, but I wish that a dedicated business phone was still a common thing.
I think there is a lot of middle ground to cover between ditching your phone entirely and being glued to your screen. A lot of it already has been said by other people in this thread, but one...
I think there is a lot of middle ground to cover between ditching your phone entirely and being glued to your screen.
A lot of it already has been said by other people in this thread, but one thing that has helped me a lot is dialing down notifications. On default settings phones are basically meant to be distraction machines. There are notifications for every single little thing. I am not the sort of person who at the "ding" of a notification can ignore it.
So what I did is:
turn sound off for all notifications.
Vibration off for most, with a few exceptions.
Turn off notifications for a lot of default things like mail, discord, any social media app, etc.
This means that I am not constantly invited to pick up my phone in the first place. When I pick up my phone with a certain purpose, I am not easily sidetracked by notifications on my screen either.
It certainly isn't perfect, but it has helped me a lot.
I don't think I can fully go phoneless (it's too convenient in many situations), but this article really speaks to me. I have been making efforts to reduce phone usage in the past few months,...
I don't think I can fully go phoneless (it's too convenient in many situations), but this article really speaks to me. I have been making efforts to reduce phone usage in the past few months, though I have not yet started putting it in another room. I really should do that and then just get an regular ass alarm clock so I don't even need my phone next to my bed, either.
I've toyed with the idea of buying a phone so inconvenient that I don't want to use it (like the Jelly Star), but I think I'm going to try isolating myself from my phone first and removing all but the most basic apps.
I wonder if there are other operating systems I could load onto my pixel 6 that are more minimalistic that can help me reduce my phone to a communication device rather than a "kill time" device. If I used texts/calls for all my communication, I might have already gone back to an old school flip phone, but I just can't quit discord entirely when that's where most of my friends live.
The thing about friction is spot on. Deliberately adding friction to actions you should think about more or which are not good(in large amounts) means it is easier to notice what habits I am...
The thing about friction is spot on.
Deliberately adding friction to actions you should think about more or which are not good(in large amounts) means it is easier to notice what habits I am forming and avoid things I do not want to do.
I ignore one click buy and such, I only use my phone as a phone and as a utility, I have a single game on there I have not opened in months, I have no social media or any distracting apps. I actually avoided getting a smartphone until recently. I have an e-reader I use on longer time periods(commutes and such) and on shorter ones I simply wait. And still I recently find myself checking the phone too frequently. I just cannot imagine what it would be like with bunch of engagement maximization apps, undisabled preinstalled bloatware and unmuted notifications.
Smartphones are absolutely amazing technology and their potential is incredible but how they are used is appalling. If you do not need one it is better not to have it and if you have it is better to not use it unless necessary.
I found this article fascinating. I've recently been on a mission to cut out mindless scrolling, texting, and notification-distraction from my life, because I realised how badly it was impacting my life. And it had destroyed my attention span.
I clicked on this link pretty prejudiced about getting any meaningful life advice from the habits of A-list celebrities, but I was surprised.
I recently read a long and torturous book by a tech commentator and artist about disconnecting. At the end of it all, their advice was 'replace your phone with birdwatching'. They also acknowledged, in a small way, that they were privileged to be able to just do nothing, whereas most people couldn't afford to (financially or socially). It left me infuriated. Of course we'd all like to sit around doing nothing all day and watching birds, or whatever our version of that is. But we fucking can't! We're not Bay Area artists-in-residence who get paid to tell other people in tech that tech can be a bit bad for us.
I got more out of this short article than I did that long, drawn-out series of essays. For those of us who do have to do things like banking, read emails, and would very much like to stay in touch with our connected social circles, this was actual, practical advice.
Boiled down, it's simple. Use it, but be aware of how you use it. Not being able to carry it everywhere with you, at every second, and be drawn in by those dopamine hits of notifications, likes, and replies, is a good strategy.
I think this article lays out a good middle path between cabin-in-the-woods and just abandoning yourself to the inevitability of having your attention dragged away by the attention economy. Hope some of you enjoy reading it.
Im happy if I can just convince everyone to put our phones down during a face to face family visit. Geez, its hard though. One person's phone dings and everyone feels justified pulling out their phones while the first person checks the notification. We're ridiculously Pavlovian.
One small tip. I had to reset my phone recently and the only social app I use is instagram. This time i didn't gave permission for notifications and didn't put it on my home screen.
I'm using way less now.
One feature I want on phones is a way to only allow certain notifications through. On a delivery app, I want notifications for when the driver arrives, but I don't want to hear about coupons at local restaurants.
I wish that I could allow notifications that were important, but block the advertisements.
This already exists, but business won't do it the rght way because why do it?
You can turn certain notification channels off, but the app has to respect those channels.
At least on iOS there is no default categorization of notifications by how critical they are to the app. The one place I think forcing companies to categorize notifications into app critical and advertisements could work is on Apple devices.
If Apple gave users a way to report "spam" notifications, they could moderate the apps. Apple already takes down apps for breaking their app store guidelines, so this could just be an additional guideline to follow.
The "real-time" category was supposed to fix this issue but they get around it by saying "this coupon will expire in an hour" and now it's considered real-time.
Live activities actually improved the situation for me. I just disable notifications entirely and then if I order something the progress is up at the top.
If you're on Android, I recommend BuzzKill to manage notifications. I use it to silence and batch news notifications during the working day, and also to not vibrate my phone if someone is sending a bunch of texts in a short space of time.
There's a lot more customisation available and I think Tasker integration.
This idea is elaborated on in the book 'digital minimalism' by Cal Newport. I highly recommend.
This sums it up pretty well, though it is hard to do in practice. If you are old enough, you might remember that going "on the Internet" was a conscious deliberate decision. Had to turn on the computer, dial up with the modem, browse the web, do emails and whatever, and then shut it down again.
Smartphones changed all that. And while my personal self control isn't anywhere near perfect, I do try to set time for specific things. Like check RSS feeds, Facebook and emails, and then leave the phone with only notifications for incoming calls and the like. Screen Time and the like helps with this, but it is not perfect, and I am still struggling with wanting to check my phone for completely non-urgent stuff all the time.
Something that's been a source of friction with some of my younger friends is that they're used to being always online from growing up with smartphones, and thus expect people to respond to them immediately pretty much whenever and get impatient when they don't. I'm only a few years older than them, but I remember when I was younger, you'd talk to your friends while you were both on the computer, and when you/they logged off MSN Messenger or AIM or whatever, that was it - if you wanted to keep talking, you called them or waited to see them at school the next day. I don't like the idea of being constantly reachable so I've limited a lot of that in my life. My parents, brother, and partner are the only people I get priority notifications from; everyone else can wait. There's a lot of sites I only check on my computer now, partly because of this but also partly because I hate using a device as small as a phone for long-form typing and such.
Similarly, a big thing that's helped me is that my laptop doesn't live on my desk. It's stored away on top of a little shelving unit under my desk. Having it there means "going on the computer" is an intentional activity again, rather than something I do out of habit because my computer is right there when I sit at my desk and then I end up wasting time on it instead of doing what I intended to do when I sit down.
Cal Newport calls this the "overactive hive mind." It's a real challenge, even with older generations at work for me. A middle ground I found was using office hours where I am this available for a specific time each day. If that doesn't work, then it's scheduling a meeting.
The third space community locations are what I miss. Being able to turn off technology is great if you have a geographical location that has consistent groups of people you know. It's hard to plan or find out what to do with others as everything is planned online for the most part.
Ooh, I haven’t considered that before — being able to physically put away the computer because it’s a laptop! I’ve been tossing up what my next computer might be (tossing up getting Linux, but I’ve never touched it before so I’m not sure…), because I’m pretty sure I want to move away from Windows with all their in-OS advertising ramping up all over the place, but maybe I also need to consider the form factor too! Being able to just put my computer away would free up my desk to be used for other stuff, and that might be a positive change to consider!
I have often wanted to go phoneless over the past few years, and I like a lot of the ideas described in this article. Creating dedicated computing locations seems like a good way to use psychology to link activities to spaces. It's certainly worked for me: having a dedicated office room in my home has given me no end of mental space and clarity. Once the door closes, I'm done for the day.
I already do a lot to curtail how demanding my phone is. Most modern versions of mobile OSes have a lot of good features for managing your relationship with your phone. I strongly recommend to everyone that they make use of those features if they are trying to cut down on their phone use. Give yourself time limits for addicting apps, stop notifications coming through or making noises at certain times of (or all) day, prevent low-stakes/non-urgent group chats or apps from notifying at all. There are a wealth of options available on the devices we already have, but they seem to be reserved and marketed only for "power users" rather than anyone who wants to have a healthier relationship with their device.
I actually tried going semi-phoneless and using the Light Phone 2. I made it a few months before it just started to get annoying for me. The keyboard is very difficult to use, so when you are texting, it just feels like you can't keep up with the pace of the conversation. The microphone and speaker are also not very good, so phone calls do not work well.
The Light Phone 2 seems like it's a phone that is bad, but it parades it as a feature. I like the philosophy behind it, but a phone really needs to be able to do the core phone tasks well even if it doesn't have extra features.
I wish that carriers would let you have two phones that share the same phone number. I would love to have a second phone that is much less functional that I could switch out with a smartphone as needed. Sometimes bringing a smartphone is unnecessary, but other times it's basically required. As of now, my options are carry a smartphone or become totally disconnected.
Light Phone seems cool on paper, but in the real world it would just isolate me.
Whatsapp is big in Brazil. Every person and business uses it. I wouldn't be able to do my job without.
I know some phones have started selling "No SIM" as a feature, but this ability is part of the allure of using sim cards. The SIM card is your link to the carrier, so whatever phone it is in is the phone that has your number.
I don't think I could live with Light Phone right now (I basically use discord as my primary communication method with 90% of the people I talk to), but I'm definitely excited for further iterations. Really, if they just had discord and a bit better refresh rate, I'd be all in.
That's a doable thing, though it's usually an added expense to do that, and it's usually not available from the cariers directly unless you are a large enterprise. The easiest way for an average person would be to use a VoIP service.
Here’s a guide for anyone that wants to try this out in a semi-practical way:
https://inteltechniques.com/voip.suite.html
There are a number of other providers who can do all of this much easier, like RingCentral or Google Voice. Though to be fair they do have downsides like higher than necessary pricing or being a Google service.
Wait, you can’t just swap over the SIM card from one phone to another? I get that it takes a few minutes to swap it over and have the new phone register with the cell towers, but I didn’t realise other countries had more barriers than that?
You can do that in some cases, but newer phones are moving to eSIM. My iPhone 15 Pro Max doesn’t have a physical SIM.
It’s possible to have a carrier assign 2 phone numbers to a single phone, but not a single phone number to 2 phones.
It would be nice to decide whether you want to take a smartphone or flip phone as you walk out the door and have call and text history synced correctly on both.
Oh, I didn’t realise newer iPhones were doing away with the SIM card — I’ve got the iPhone SE which has the option for eSIM but still has the physical SIM drawer too.
I’m currently running it in dual mode (two separate numbers, one physical SIM and one eSIM, with different providers) and my physical SIM provider doesn’t yet offer eSIM. I’m in luck that Apple hasn’t done away with physical SIM slot in Australia yet, even for the iPhone 15, but if/when they do, I’m hoping Australian mobile service providers will have caught up by then.
A phone is what keeps me organized. Luckily, or unluckily, I don't have a high volume of texts or calls, and am not distracted by that. But until I'm done for the day, I use it for doing what I want to do.
In the past I would go more places without it, but there are a few reasons I don't anymore:
So yeah I don't know. I don't usually feel like I use my phone too much?
I think you have a healthy relationship with your technology by the sounds of it
I turn wifi and 5G off on my phone when I leave work and am not on call. I turn it back on when I get to work.
Everyone knows they can call or text me if needed, and that I'd much rather they call to have a chat than get an impersonal message.
I don't live with beeps and boops drawing my attention away from those around me, or my own personal space all the time.
It's absolutely amazing. I highly recommend this.
i am confused about the effect of this. With those off, do you have calls and texts, but no apps? Do you use your phone for things like organization/planning or calendaring? Could you say more about the details and the effect it has on you?
I have calls, texts, can take pictures or videos and sync with cloud services later.
No emails, no messenger apps, no alerts, no news, no tracking. No music, no podcasts, no streaming, no videos. No news, no social media scrolling, no tracking no recommendations.
You can choose to have offline alerts from your calendar or not. I have those off. I can always choose to go to a computer, or go online to check email, news, whatever actively. Then go about my day later.
The greatest effect is that you are off when you're not working. That you are in the moment, and not constantly thinking about the vibrations in your pocket. Kids, people, if you watch a movie, you're right then and there.
If whatever I'm watching can't keep my interest enough to put the phone away, maybe I shouldn't be wasting my time on watching it?
I can have automated messages on email to text me if something requires a prompt response. Customers and colleagues alike know not to misuse it, and aren't scared of sending me a message if something should be done soon.
I can time outgoing emails to always be sent within office hours in a lame attempt to let others escape the terrorization of alerts from me at least.
I have free time that's my own time. My employer pays me for my time and doesn't get hours and hours for free, just checking stuff.
That's interesting. By the time I left my last job, I still technically had email and slack for work on it, but the notifications dialed down to zero outside work hours (unless someone pushed a notification in slack, which was rare unless there was a real emergency). I think my distractions on my phone are not work related anymore, but I spent a lot of time in therapy over the last few years to address my unhealthy attitudes toward work life balance.
Startup culture (or maybe American culture, but startups are worse) has really created a distorted view of work: work is your life, the thing you are supposed to devote yourself to (a very convenient attitude for the company). For personal reasons, I would like to find part time work, but talking recruiters or interviewing, it seems that any conversation that starts with placing limits of any kind on your time working (even for less money) is already anathema.
As much as I would love to be able to ditch my phone when I am not at work, being on call makes that more or less impossible. For those who also work on call, have you been able to ditch your phone? Or lead a phone-lite life? If so, please guide me. I'd love some help.
I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but I find it useful to embrace notifications by customizing ringtone alerts for as many apps as I can. This creates two layers of prioritization in my experience. For example, I can hear if the notif is coming from different emails or from text message vs. work messenger vs. social media DM. If I'm super busy, I might ignore everything else except the work sound. But I can also check the notification banner without unlocking my phone to make sure there isn't a personal emergency to attend to. Conversely, I might decide that now is a good time to goof around! 😝
Android is way easier to customize than iPhone. The latter requires about an hour using iTunes of all things to convert file formats, but it was worth it for me.
I heard about a hospital that got rid of pagers and moved to an app where doctors could receive photos and messages about each specific issue, but the sender could see if they read their message. Many did not like it because they enjoyed the discretion they had in how they wanted to respond to a page.
Maybe what you need a separate flip phone for being on call. You can get calls and texts from work, but you can leave the rest of your distractions behind on your main phone. I know it's cheaper for a business to just call you on your personal phone, but I wish that a dedicated business phone was still a common thing.
Possibly this recent story? I found it a surprising result and indicative of how subtle the effects of pushed notifications can be.
I think there is a lot of middle ground to cover between ditching your phone entirely and being glued to your screen.
A lot of it already has been said by other people in this thread, but one thing that has helped me a lot is dialing down notifications. On default settings phones are basically meant to be distraction machines. There are notifications for every single little thing. I am not the sort of person who at the "ding" of a notification can ignore it.
So what I did is:
This means that I am not constantly invited to pick up my phone in the first place. When I pick up my phone with a certain purpose, I am not easily sidetracked by notifications on my screen either.
It certainly isn't perfect, but it has helped me a lot.
I don't think I can fully go phoneless (it's too convenient in many situations), but this article really speaks to me. I have been making efforts to reduce phone usage in the past few months, though I have not yet started putting it in another room. I really should do that and then just get an regular ass alarm clock so I don't even need my phone next to my bed, either.
I've toyed with the idea of buying a phone so inconvenient that I don't want to use it (like the Jelly Star), but I think I'm going to try isolating myself from my phone first and removing all but the most basic apps.
I wonder if there are other operating systems I could load onto my pixel 6 that are more minimalistic that can help me reduce my phone to a communication device rather than a "kill time" device. If I used texts/calls for all my communication, I might have already gone back to an old school flip phone, but I just can't quit discord entirely when that's where most of my friends live.
The thing about friction is spot on.
Deliberately adding friction to actions you should think about more or which are not good(in large amounts) means it is easier to notice what habits I am forming and avoid things I do not want to do.
I ignore one click buy and such, I only use my phone as a phone and as a utility, I have a single game on there I have not opened in months, I have no social media or any distracting apps. I actually avoided getting a smartphone until recently. I have an e-reader I use on longer time periods(commutes and such) and on shorter ones I simply wait. And still I recently find myself checking the phone too frequently. I just cannot imagine what it would be like with bunch of engagement maximization apps, undisabled preinstalled bloatware and unmuted notifications.
Smartphones are absolutely amazing technology and their potential is incredible but how they are used is appalling. If you do not need one it is better not to have it and if you have it is better to not use it unless necessary.