6 ms·

I recently got rid of my cell phone. There are a lot of benefits and just about as many negatives. Overall, I think the benefits outweigh the negatives. For con

by bpchaps 11y ago

I recently got rid of my cell phone. There are a lot of benefits and just about as many negatives. Overall, I think the benefits outweigh the negatives. For context, I've been on-call for the past 7 years since the start of my career, so ditching the phone probably comes from that. fwiw, I have a land line, but that's about it. Positives-- My instinct is no longer to check my phone when I'm bored or waiting. It was rough at first, but I can be pretty content just standing in a line with my own thoughts. Nobody can call me at any given time, whenever they want. Social anxiety has a mental toll on my energy, so not having a phone around gives a significant boost. It's easier to accept not knowing something. Plans are planned significantly more concretely. Negatives-- "You don't have a phone?! What's wrong with you?!" -everybody Not having a GPS/google makes things hard to find in certain circumstances. There's a huge expectation when dealing with any modern service that you'll have a cell phone and can be contacted at any time. For example, it's impossible to order an Uber on a laptop. (I realize the article is about smart->dumb, but the problems are still surprisingly similar)

Marcus316 11y ago
Good on you! I have a work-provided smart phone, and while it's nice to have, I constantly stun my more progressive co-workers by leaving my phone off for long periods of time. It doesn't take that much more time to turn it on if I truly need it, but often I just forget about it. I suspect I could do without a cell phone of any type. I'm just not the target demographic, I guess.
- giancarlostoro 11y ago
  You could also put it on airplane mode so when you turn it off from airplane mode you wont have to "wait" for it to turn on. This also saves significant battery, maybe not as much as it being turned off but enough.
nibs 11y ago
It is possible to order Uber on a laptop. https://m.uber.com/ https://m.uber.com/ with location services active on your browser. Works well. Just so this post is relevant to conversation... I use a Blackberry Q10 with the keyboard. I only have SMS and phone and it is great for those purposes. I used to have an Android but it was too intense for my fragile millenial attention.
- marssaxman 11y ago
  You can use m.uber.com on a phone, too, and it complains less than the app does if you have location services turned off. (Though it actually is possible to order a car without location services, despite its protestations, if you dance back and forth enough times to make it close the alert box.)
- chippy 11y ago
  > It is possible to order Uber on a laptop. But probably not possible to sign up without a phone?
  - BoysenberryPi 11y ago
    You can sign up on regular Uber.com
- bpchaps 11y ago
  Thanks! It's a bit of a hacky way (why doesn't their non-mobile version at least link to it?!), but it's better than nothing, I guess.
- vmarsy 11y ago
  if you have a windows 10 laptop they also have an app: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/uber/9wzdncrfhxrd https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/uber/9wzdncrfhxrd
quanticle 11y ago
Plans are planned significantly more concretely. I've found that only works as long as everyone you work or hang out with knows that you don't have a smartphone and, therefore, don't have access to Google Maps and Facebook everywhere. Otherwise you can get into trouble when, for example, someone changes the location of a meetup at the last minute, with the expectation that everyone will 1) be notified of the new location and 2) be easily able to find their way to the new address.
- giancarlostoro 11y ago
  I would think people who have "dumb" phones have a bit of extra money to invest in GPS. This is one reason I'm considering switching from Sprint into Google Fi, the only thing holding me back is the hefty cost of the phone.
  - brbsix 11y ago
    You can get a pretty good deal on the previous gen Nexus 6 from Amazon @ http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Unlocked-Cellphone-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00R1984DI/ref=sr_1_1?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1456354072&sr=1-1&keywords=nexus+6 http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Unlocked-Cellphone-Discontinu.... I was considering getting one there instead of buying it directly from Google Fi. GPS devices have a host of annoyances... Lack of live traffic information (unless you want to pay a subscription), no Waze reporting (a feature of Google Maps), slow power up and lock, difficult to pick waypoints manually and zoom around freely, etc. Maybe they have gotten better in recent years but I haven't been very impressed in the past.
    - giancarlostoro 11y ago
      Thanks, hopefully I end up with a reliable phone. The GPS is really the only thing relevant to me outside of texting and talking.
matwood 11y ago
A negative for me would be not being able to read whenever I have to wait on something. I have read more books than ever before because I have them on my phone. It sounds like a lot of people in this thread do not need to quit using a smart phone, and instead need to quit facebook. I don't do FB and do not have many alerts at all on my phone. My email apps are smart enough to only show me alerts for things that matter and everything else I get to when I get to it. I do agree with you on one thing though. When hanging out with people leave your phones in the car. Nothing is more annoying that having a conversation and people messing around on their phones.
- bpchaps 11y ago
  Sometimes it's not as easy as just quitting facebook. This argument comes up a lot, but it's a solution that works entirely on a case-by-case basis. When I had a smart phone, the methods of communicating with me were email, work email, work IM, facebook, skype, hangouts, phone, and text. Because of work, it wasn't possible to do airplane mode and it wasn't possible to do a sleep-mode bypass for specific phone numbers because of the oncall situations. The only way I could find to manage notifications properly was to essentially create a black list for my contacts and blacklist all apps. It worked up until somebody on the black list needs to reach me, so they get added to the white list to avoid the issue. Oh, shit, they're texting me while I'm trying to work - back to the whitelist! It eventually just becomes an incredibly tedious task to manage your notifications properly - which in itself is a dang distraction. Agreed on leaving phones elsewhere - just as long as you live in a decent area. Some of the most awkward times I've had recently are while hanging out with others where everyone is on their phones and I can really only just twiddle my thumb. Bringing the subject only results in "hipster" comments, rather than an actual discussion.
  - EC1 11y ago
    I thought the same way until I realized that 99% of the people I'm bantering with online are only in my life because they are accessible. Neither of us would ever put the effort towards actually meeting up and hanging out. I only have a couple of people I want to retain contact with so ditching FB and all other chats was simple. I'm able to actually DO things now instead of being in this weird digital limbo where my life is a moving data point and social media is the measuring stick. I couldn't come up with a good answer to "Who actually are these people I chat with all day?"
vmorgulis 11y ago
> "You don't have a phone?! What's wrong with you?!" -everybody I think next-wave hipsters won't have phones.
vijayr 11y ago
This would be a deal breaker if one has kids or old parents or someone with medical condition at home :( In all other cases, it is very much possible to live without a smart phone
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
seanp2k2 11y ago
You can get a nice GPS with up-to-date maps and a data connection for traffic etc for $200-$400 these days if that's the biggest part you're missing. Garmin still makes nice ones: http://www.cnet.com/topics/gps/best-gps/ http://www.cnet.com/topics/gps/best-gps/
grecy 11y ago
I'm 34, and I've resisted having a cell phone my whole life. For the last 4 years I had a dumb phone, but 6 months ago I got rid of it and have gone back to no phone at all. I've never had a "smart phone" and given that I'm addicted to the internet/computers, I think it's best that I don't, else I'd be the guy constantly on my phone rather than engaging with the people in the room with me. The negatives are sometimes annoying, but I only need to see how tied to their phones other people are to remind me of the positives.
EliRivers 11y ago
In echo of your words, for the last few years, people I've been meeting in the pub have sometimes turned up late, sometimes really quite late indeed, and they always complained that they couldn't call me to tell me. I would point out that they would generally have called too late for me to delay, being on my way to the pub already (or even already there), but there was a weird belief that telling me they were late made it better, somehow. Except this year. For example, the last time I went to the pub (a week ago) the other party got there bang on time, to the minute, having apparently freaked out at his other half and made absolutely sure that she'd give him a ride to the pub in time, because he knew there was no way to contact me. Now that I'm known for not being contactable, people actually start planning around it and make an effort to be on time.

by bpchaps 11y ago

Marcus316 11y ago

Good on you! I have a work-provided smart phone, and while it's nice to have, I constantly stun my more progressive co-workers by leaving my phone off for long periods of time. It doesn't take that much more time to turn it on if I truly need it, but often I just forget about it. I suspect I could do without a cell phone of any type. I'm just not the target demographic, I guess.

giancarlostoro 11y ago
You could also put it on airplane mode so when you turn it off from airplane mode you wont have to "wait" for it to turn on. This also saves significant battery, maybe not as much as it being turned off but enough.

nibs 11y ago

It is possible to order Uber on a laptop. https://m.uber.com/ https://m.uber.com/ with location services active on your browser. Works well. Just so this post is relevant to conversation... I use a Blackberry Q10 with the keyboard. I only have SMS and phone and it is great for those purposes. I used to have an Android but it was too intense for my fragile millenial attention.

marssaxman 11y ago
You can use m.uber.com on a phone, too, and it complains less than the app does if you have location services turned off. (Though it actually is possible to order a car without location services, despite its protestations, if you dance back and forth enough times to make it close the alert box.)
chippy 11y ago
> It is possible to order Uber on a laptop. But probably not possible to sign up without a phone?
- BoysenberryPi 11y ago
  You can sign up on regular Uber.com
bpchaps 11y ago
Thanks! It's a bit of a hacky way (why doesn't their non-mobile version at least link to it?!), but it's better than nothing, I guess.
vmarsy 11y ago
if you have a windows 10 laptop they also have an app: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/uber/9wzdncrfhxrd https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/uber/9wzdncrfhxrd

quanticle 11y ago

Plans are planned significantly more concretely. I've found that only works as long as everyone you work or hang out with knows that you don't have a smartphone and, therefore, don't have access to Google Maps and Facebook everywhere. Otherwise you can get into trouble when, for example, someone changes the location of a meetup at the last minute, with the expectation that everyone will 1) be notified of the new location and 2) be easily able to find their way to the new address.

giancarlostoro 11y ago
I would think people who have "dumb" phones have a bit of extra money to invest in GPS. This is one reason I'm considering switching from Sprint into Google Fi, the only thing holding me back is the hefty cost of the phone.
- brbsix 11y ago
  You can get a pretty good deal on the previous gen Nexus 6 from Amazon @ http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Unlocked-Cellphone-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00R1984DI/ref=sr_1_1?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1456354072&sr=1-1&keywords=nexus+6 http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Unlocked-Cellphone-Discontinu.... I was considering getting one there instead of buying it directly from Google Fi. GPS devices have a host of annoyances... Lack of live traffic information (unless you want to pay a subscription), no Waze reporting (a feature of Google Maps), slow power up and lock, difficult to pick waypoints manually and zoom around freely, etc. Maybe they have gotten better in recent years but I haven't been very impressed in the past.
  - giancarlostoro 11y ago
    Thanks, hopefully I end up with a reliable phone. The GPS is really the only thing relevant to me outside of texting and talking.

matwood 11y ago

A negative for me would be not being able to read whenever I have to wait on something. I have read more books than ever before because I have them on my phone. It sounds like a lot of people in this thread do not need to quit using a smart phone, and instead need to quit facebook. I don't do FB and do not have many alerts at all on my phone. My email apps are smart enough to only show me alerts for things that matter and everything else I get to when I get to it. I do agree with you on one thing though. When hanging out with people leave your phones in the car. Nothing is more annoying that having a conversation and people messing around on their phones.

bpchaps 11y ago
Sometimes it's not as easy as just quitting facebook. This argument comes up a lot, but it's a solution that works entirely on a case-by-case basis. When I had a smart phone, the methods of communicating with me were email, work email, work IM, facebook, skype, hangouts, phone, and text. Because of work, it wasn't possible to do airplane mode and it wasn't possible to do a sleep-mode bypass for specific phone numbers because of the oncall situations. The only way I could find to manage notifications properly was to essentially create a black list for my contacts and blacklist all apps. It worked up until somebody on the black list needs to reach me, so they get added to the white list to avoid the issue. Oh, shit, they're texting me while I'm trying to work - back to the whitelist! It eventually just becomes an incredibly tedious task to manage your notifications properly - which in itself is a dang distraction. Agreed on leaving phones elsewhere - just as long as you live in a decent area. Some of the most awkward times I've had recently are while hanging out with others where everyone is on their phones and I can really only just twiddle my thumb. Bringing the subject only results in "hipster" comments, rather than an actual discussion.
- EC1 11y ago
  I thought the same way until I realized that 99% of the people I'm bantering with online are only in my life because they are accessible. Neither of us would ever put the effort towards actually meeting up and hanging out. I only have a couple of people I want to retain contact with so ditching FB and all other chats was simple. I'm able to actually DO things now instead of being in this weird digital limbo where my life is a moving data point and social media is the measuring stick. I couldn't come up with a good answer to "Who actually are these people I chat with all day?"

vmorgulis 11y ago

> "You don't have a phone?! What's wrong with you?!" -everybody I think next-wave hipsters won't have phones.

vijayr 11y ago

This would be a deal breaker if one has kids or old parents or someone with medical condition at home :( In all other cases, it is very much possible to live without a smart phone

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

seanp2k2 11y ago

You can get a nice GPS with up-to-date maps and a data connection for traffic etc for $200-$400 these days if that's the biggest part you're missing. Garmin still makes nice ones: http://www.cnet.com/topics/gps/best-gps/ http://www.cnet.com/topics/gps/best-gps/

grecy 11y ago

I'm 34, and I've resisted having a cell phone my whole life. For the last 4 years I had a dumb phone, but 6 months ago I got rid of it and have gone back to no phone at all. I've never had a "smart phone" and given that I'm addicted to the internet/computers, I think it's best that I don't, else I'd be the guy constantly on my phone rather than engaging with the people in the room with me. The negatives are sometimes annoying, but I only need to see how tied to their phones other people are to remind me of the positives.

EliRivers 11y ago

In echo of your words, for the last few years, people I've been meeting in the pub have sometimes turned up late, sometimes really quite late indeed, and they always complained that they couldn't call me to tell me. I would point out that they would generally have called too late for me to delay, being on my way to the pub already (or even already there), but there was a weird belief that telling me they were late made it better, somehow. Except this year. For example, the last time I went to the pub (a week ago) the other party got there bang on time, to the minute, having apparently freaked out at his other half and made absolutely sure that she'd give him a ride to the pub in time, because he knew there was no way to contact me. Now that I'm known for not being contactable, people actually start planning around it and make an effort to be on time.