9 ms·

This is fun and all, but also incredibly sad. My fiancée previously complained that I was staring at my phone too much (and she was absolutely right). So, I dec

This is fun and all, but also incredibly sad. My fiancée previously complained that I was staring at my phone too much (and she was absolutely right). So, I decided to minimise it. Remove all apps and notifications, and kept it in a corner of the kitchen instead of in my pocket. Even though she has not increased her screen time, it is now obvious to me that SHE is staring to much into that screen. We are all phone junkies.

silicon2401 6y ago
breaking the phone habit is imho one of the best things anybody can do these days. Phones often are an all-in-one coping mechanism for other issues: boredom, stress, loneliness, etc. One of the best things I ever did was get off all social media, force myself not to even pick up my phone except to respond to a call or text, and just confront the boredom. After a few minutes of no phone you find yourself actually doing things and focusing again. After a few days you wonder how you could ever have wasted so much time infinitely scrolling through videos or articles that you can't even remember the next day, let alone 4+ years later. In contrast, I've been able to make so many memories gaming, playing music, watching movies with an actual sense of immersion, art, reading, exercising, and so much more. The childlike sense of wonder and excitement that I had as a child all came back as soon as I learned to focus and be in the moment again
- nine_k 6y ago
  Boredom, as they say, makes you creative. So you can of course use your phone to cope with boredom — install a couple of good drawing / painting apps, music creation apps, study-something apps. Use them when bored. Just stay away from the endorphin-pedal games which teach you nothing and are not a work of art to be experienced. With that, a conscious act of putting down your phone and looking around is important. You can make it a habit without abandoning the phone altogether.
  - IndySun 6y ago
    >Boredom, as they say, makes you creative. I have never heard this maxim. Is it well known? The Pet Shop Boys sang, I would never find myself feeling bored 'cause we were never being boring.
    - nine_k 6y ago
      (1) https://www.google.com/search?q=boredom%20required%20for%20creativity https://www.google.com/search?q=boredom%20required%20for%20c... (2) Ask any animal trainer, like a dog trainer.
      - IndySun 6y ago
        Aah, yes, of course. I'd call it 'blue sky thinking'. I definitely came at the expression and not what it was saying. Thank you.
- an_opabinia 6y ago
  > ...Phones often are an all-in-one coping mechanism for other issues While I agree in principle for healthy people, it's a waste of time, but for people for whom light entertainment is their medicine... would you rather they be drinking? This comes up a lot re: video game addiction. The jury's still out on the impact of social media and light entertainment (i.e. YouTube) on mental health. UK teens for example are doing far fewer drugs, getting pregnant from unsafe sex much less often, rising in school rankings, despite less sleep and higher levels of reported anxiety from watching more YouTube and Instagram. "Everything in moderation" is kind of reductionist, of course we'd prefer that an asinine activity whose harm must be marginally declining the more people use it, not less, for the average person, substitute a harmful one like, I don't know, smoking meth. That's definitely happening for some people.
  - jjulius 6y ago
    >... but for people for whom light entertainment is their medicine... would you rather they be drinking? While I don't find anything wrong with light entertainment being one's medicine, why make the assumption that drinking is the next viable 'medicine' in line? Are there not countless alternatives to drinking to remedy "boredom, stress, loneliness, etc."? Picking up hobbies? Sports? Anything else? Edit: I want to clarify I'm not judging those who cope with alcohol - I'm 5 years sober, I've been there, I get it. I just don't know why we should assume OP wants people to become alcoholics.
    - mrcartmenez 6y ago
      These are all fair points reasonably made.
    - themacguffinman 6y ago
      Isn't a similarly low-effort activity like drinking the more likely alternative for the kind of person who relies heavily on social media to fill their lives? Higher effort activities like hobbies and sports and such are obviously healthier alternatives, but anyone can already do them and they probably would if they had any inclination to do them in the first place.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  > and just confront the boredom "If you are bored, you are not paying attention."
- foobarian 6y ago
  I realized that having an older phone (Nexus 6P) helps not use it because it is so slow and annoying to use that I dread having to interact with it. So I still have the necessary features like navigation, on-the-road connectivity, company VPN authentication etc. but past that don't get addicted to time wasters at all.
- offtop5 6y ago
  Reading a fantastic book called Digital Minimalism on this very subject. Back when I used social media I noticed I'd be very angry arguing with people I didn't even know. Never meet anyone with a job. Deleted all that crap, moved , and had an amazing partner( she had a JOB) within a month. Life is right here, if your at a coffee shop and you notice someone reading a book that seems interesting ask about it. Works out much more often than chatting with bots. Even when snapchatting with a "real" person, the "typing" notification felt like a raw anxiety machine. Now I only meet people in real life, text her once if she'd like to get dinner at 8 or so and then move on with my life. Feels really good to hop off the social media hamsterwheel. Me a few years ago: Gotta get more followers to get more likes to get more followers to get more likes to get more followers. Then maybe my matches will see how cool and popular I am. It's very much pointless. You'll never be popular enough. Without question I've removed the vast majority of stress from my life by ditching social media. Frankly my life is amazing. But if I'm staring at what other people have all day I'll never recognize it. Everyone will post 'just engaged' photos , no one is posting 'our marriage has been really rough, but I don't want to move back in with my parents'.
  - earthboundkid 6y ago
    HN is social media.
    - incompatible 6y ago
      I don't think it would qualify, since there's no connection between users' profiles. You can't set up a "friends" list, or any other kind of group.
      - briefcomment 6y ago
        Regardless of whether it's social media or not, HN is a huge digital waste of time. Try to think of more than 10 posts that really improved your life over the years. Now realize that you probably look at more than 50 HN posts a day. I would spend much less time on HN, but it's an addiction, like most things digital.
- bridanp 6y ago
  It's sounds silly, but the way I've broken the phone addiction is with a watch. I've got it paired as a family member through my wife's phone, and it has a cell plan so the only phone number I have is through the watch. My work requires me to have a mobile "phone" and I get a stipend for having the service, so I'm required to have something. This serves that purpose, but for my mental health, the mindless scrolling and surfing are gone because the apps on this thing are too small for my middle age eyes to bother with. And with work internet access being restricted, I've pretty much broken the smartphone habit. Yes feels like an expensive way to break a habit. I agree, but all things factored in, it meets every requirement and gives me a lot of hours back in the day for what you mentioned: reading, exercising, study.
  - mlac 6y ago
    This is also my experience. Since getting a watch (with LTE) I’m much more willing to leave my phone in the house or car on walks or when I’m out. I have a phone too - it’s just necessary for when I travel for work / if I need to do anything while away from the computer. I guess it’s phases of connectedness - an iPad let’s me be more mobile than my computer. My phone let’s me be more mobile than my iPad, and my watch covers the rest. Do I need this level of connectedness? Probably 3x per year. But those three times are absolutely critical and it gives me peace of mind if I’m on vacation - if my watch isn’t ringing I’m free to do whatever it is in front of me. I did the digital minimalism thing (and need to do it again soon), but a watch is a nice forcing function. And calls have to be short because they are on speaker phone (or EarPods / Bluetooth, which overall is a good setup). If apple keeps going the way they are going, I will need a very strong argument to get my kid a smartphone in 10 years when I can get them a watch that allows them to make calls, send limited texts, and not get wrapped up in social media / taking photos all the time.
  - redisman 6y ago
    What watch? Apple? I like that idea
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  Boredom is amazing. I spent four hours today demolishing a deck alone. I was afraid to break my phone so I left it. Four hours of work without music or podcast. My brain went to all kinds of places and I solved like five different coding problems I was faced with at work. I should really bill my employer.
- tommilukkarinen 6y ago
  I am trying to cure myself with a surrogate. The surrogate is Facebook Oculus Quest VR. This might seem funny at first, but there are some advantages: while you stare at the screen, you also move at the same time, which I feel is important for health. The battery runs after an hour or so, and you have to put the device away. At this point I usually feel the need to do something again, but I'm no longer 'after work tired', and can do something productive like go jogging or do house chores. The experiment is still going on, I feel it is promising.
Syonyk 6y ago
I've gotten in the habit of turning mine off regularly. I'll just turn it off in the evening and turn it on in the morning if I don't need an alarm (which... I have an alarm clock, I just tend to not use it). I use it mostly for person to person communication and kid photos (the only things on my home screen are Messages, Signal, Hangouts, Element, the actual phone app, and the camera - everything else is buried over in the App Library), I've got most distraction websites blocked with 1BlockerX (not that it's hard to get around, but it's a good hurdle to jump), and about the only notifications I get are messages from people, plus emails on infrequent accounts (main account is poll only, no notifications). It works well, though I still struggle with how much time can go vanishing down the rabbit hole of "I'm bored, I wonder what's on the internet today..." I really need to get a "house phone" set up on an old cell phone. Get one of those "You only pay if you use it" plans, though I expect the spammers and scammers would cost me a lot of money that way.
- OJFord 6y ago
  > Get one of those "You only pay if you use it" plans, though I expect the spammers and scammers would cost me a lot of money that way. I don't know what country you're in, (here in the UK I'd expect anyone would call that 'Pay As You Go (PAYG)') but could spammers and scammers really cost you anything? By calling/texting you? Even for pan-European stuff only the initiator pays these days.
  - g_p 6y ago
    In the US, without an inclusive calls plan (i.e. what you call a contract in the UK), both caller and recipient pay - it appears that you pay for "air time" (time in an inbound or outbound call). Most people will be on a contract with unlimited "air time", which effectively gives unlimited inbound and outbound calls without charge. Operator billing models are seldom rooted in reality, and often are quite counter productive - 4G originally was a "pay extra" feature, despite the fact it is in an operator's interest to get users onto 4G due to the increased spectral efficiency, and better performance with weaker signals (so less complaints). They designated VoLTE (4G HD calling) as a premium feature for contract users, but it actually reduces the load on the legacy voice network. And don't start me with WiFi Calling, which is also often a contract premium feature, but actually trunks the call over a connection the user already pays for (and avoids using the cellular network!) - common sense plays little part in how operator billing works. In the UK look up the "termination rate" if you're interested - this was the mechanism through which the receiving side of the call made money and was able to offer receiving of calls for free.
Jeff_Brown 6y ago
News, asynchronous communication, and other media have a payoff structure not unlike a slot machine's. It can be genuinely hard to determine whether one's consumption of any of them is irrational.
- nicbou 6y ago
  I forgot who said checking notifications is like pulling the slot machine lever, but it's an apt comparison.
  - klondike_klive 6y ago
    Sounds like a Douglas Rushkoff-ism.
dan-robertson 6y ago
One silly trick: put your phone into greyscale mode. Without the colours, a lot of the addictive time sinks are just less exciting.
- hypertele-Xii 6y ago
  Hacker News without orange? Oh my.
  - ISL 6y ago
    You might not be aware, but it is possible to change the color of your top-bar in your profile once you have more than 250 karma.
    - Rerarom 6y ago
      Not the parent poster, but thanks, I had missed that.
- Syonyk 6y ago
  Indeed! And the "BRIGHT RED WARNING NOTIFICATION SOMETHING TO CHECK!" bubbles aren't nearly so grating either. They're still present, easy to read, but not as visually abrasive. What's really funny, on iOS, at least, is that the accessibility settings persist across device upgrades. You can configure a triple tap of the home button (or power button on newer devices) to toggle the accessibility option, so you can toggle quickly between greyscale and full color. This is nice if you're showing people photos, though I do tend to forget to switch it back. I set up the option for someone on their phone years ago, and they'd apparently not used it much, because they entirely forgot I'd done it. On a phone or two later in their upgrade cycle, he had it laying on the table (locked), so I reached over and triple tapped the power button. And the setting had persisted all these years such that it still jumped to greyscale! There are very, very few things that you can't do with a modern smartphone when it's in greyscale - any sort of colorblind aware application should be distinguishable without color details, and if you're not showing photos to people, it's entirely possible to go months in greyscale. I suggest trying it out! (however, if you take a screenshot to show off your fancy new greyscale scheme, be aware that they're still taken in color)
grecy 6y ago
That is the main reason I don't have a phone. I know that I'm addicted to the internet and screens, and I know I'd be that guy compulsively picking up my phone every 30 seconds to see if something is going on. Doubly so if I were in a social situation where it was "easier" to stare at my phone than actually talk to humans. I think of it a lot like a recovering alcoholic not wanting to go into a bar - it's just best to avoid the temptation altogether. It can be inconvenient not have a phone from time to time, but overall I think my life is better without one. Whenever I'm asked for my number and I explain I don't actually have a phone, literally every single person gushes "OMG, I wish I could get rid of mine!". That helps keeps me motivated to deal with the inconvenience. (Like people complaining about horrid hangovers to recovering alcoholics)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ryan-allen 6y ago
I have on the odd occasion switched back to a feature phone. My longest streak was about 9 months and it was an interesting experience. For the first week I found myself looking for it in situations I never noticed, for example while waiting for my coffee to be made. Instead I had to find other things to do, like observe my surroundings, observe other people, be with my thoughts. There are quite a few things that are _very_ handy having a smart phone around, though. Like Google Maps, or internet banking, but these can be mitigated by having an inexpensive secondary plan and keeping your 'smart phone' in your car, and most others can be managed by a web browser, _when you are at a computer_. I have even considered what it might be like not having a phone at all for a while, and how odd would that be? I got my first phone at 16 years old and then I was able to contact friends to find out where they were if they were late, or to inform others that I was late, yet it was not very long ago that if you planned to meet someone you were both uncontactable while attempting to meet up. It used to be a thing that you'd hang around for 30 or 60 minutes to see if your friend would 'show up' but I can't imagine that happening these days, for better or worse.
- ryan-allen 6y ago
  And I just droppped my 4 month old new Pixel and it's broken. The new experiment begins, I guess!
nicbou 6y ago
Getting rid of notifications (banners and badges) goes a long way. Now I only get them for instant messaging, and I don't respond to messages when I'm with someone else. I realised that I don't need to check emails as they arrive. Very few things require my attention. I also removed time sink apps, with the exception of reading apps (I read myself to sleep with them). I also stopped following everyone on some social media, so the feeds are empty, but I'm logged out anyway. This has worked reasonably well. I am not a phone addict anymore, because my phone doesn't feed the addiction.

silicon2401 6y ago

breaking the phone habit is imho one of the best things anybody can do these days. Phones often are an all-in-one coping mechanism for other issues: boredom, stress, loneliness, etc. One of the best things I ever did was get off all social media, force myself not to even pick up my phone except to respond to a call or text, and just confront the boredom. After a few minutes of no phone you find yourself actually doing things and focusing again. After a few days you wonder how you could ever have wasted so much time infinitely scrolling through videos or articles that you can't even remember the next day, let alone 4+ years later. In contrast, I've been able to make so many memories gaming, playing music, watching movies with an actual sense of immersion, art, reading, exercising, and so much more. The childlike sense of wonder and excitement that I had as a child all came back as soon as I learned to focus and be in the moment again

nine_k 6y ago
Boredom, as they say, makes you creative. So you can of course use your phone to cope with boredom — install a couple of good drawing / painting apps, music creation apps, study-something apps. Use them when bored. Just stay away from the endorphin-pedal games which teach you nothing and are not a work of art to be experienced. With that, a conscious act of putting down your phone and looking around is important. You can make it a habit without abandoning the phone altogether.
- IndySun 6y ago
  >Boredom, as they say, makes you creative. I have never heard this maxim. Is it well known? The Pet Shop Boys sang, I would never find myself feeling bored 'cause we were never being boring.
  - nine_k 6y ago
    (1) https://www.google.com/search?q=boredom%20required%20for%20creativity https://www.google.com/search?q=boredom%20required%20for%20c... (2) Ask any animal trainer, like a dog trainer.
    - IndySun 6y ago
      Aah, yes, of course. I'd call it 'blue sky thinking'. I definitely came at the expression and not what it was saying. Thank you.
an_opabinia 6y ago
> ...Phones often are an all-in-one coping mechanism for other issues While I agree in principle for healthy people, it's a waste of time, but for people for whom light entertainment is their medicine... would you rather they be drinking? This comes up a lot re: video game addiction. The jury's still out on the impact of social media and light entertainment (i.e. YouTube) on mental health. UK teens for example are doing far fewer drugs, getting pregnant from unsafe sex much less often, rising in school rankings, despite less sleep and higher levels of reported anxiety from watching more YouTube and Instagram. "Everything in moderation" is kind of reductionist, of course we'd prefer that an asinine activity whose harm must be marginally declining the more people use it, not less, for the average person, substitute a harmful one like, I don't know, smoking meth. That's definitely happening for some people.
- jjulius 6y ago
  >... but for people for whom light entertainment is their medicine... would you rather they be drinking? While I don't find anything wrong with light entertainment being one's medicine, why make the assumption that drinking is the next viable 'medicine' in line? Are there not countless alternatives to drinking to remedy "boredom, stress, loneliness, etc."? Picking up hobbies? Sports? Anything else? Edit: I want to clarify I'm not judging those who cope with alcohol - I'm 5 years sober, I've been there, I get it. I just don't know why we should assume OP wants people to become alcoholics.
  - mrcartmenez 6y ago
    These are all fair points reasonably made.
  - themacguffinman 6y ago
    Isn't a similarly low-effort activity like drinking the more likely alternative for the kind of person who relies heavily on social media to fill their lives? Higher effort activities like hobbies and sports and such are obviously healthier alternatives, but anyone can already do them and they probably would if they had any inclination to do them in the first place.
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> and just confront the boredom "If you are bored, you are not paying attention."
foobarian 6y ago
I realized that having an older phone (Nexus 6P) helps not use it because it is so slow and annoying to use that I dread having to interact with it. So I still have the necessary features like navigation, on-the-road connectivity, company VPN authentication etc. but past that don't get addicted to time wasters at all.
offtop5 6y ago
Reading a fantastic book called Digital Minimalism on this very subject. Back when I used social media I noticed I'd be very angry arguing with people I didn't even know. Never meet anyone with a job. Deleted all that crap, moved , and had an amazing partner( she had a JOB) within a month. Life is right here, if your at a coffee shop and you notice someone reading a book that seems interesting ask about it. Works out much more often than chatting with bots. Even when snapchatting with a "real" person, the "typing" notification felt like a raw anxiety machine. Now I only meet people in real life, text her once if she'd like to get dinner at 8 or so and then move on with my life. Feels really good to hop off the social media hamsterwheel. Me a few years ago: Gotta get more followers to get more likes to get more followers to get more likes to get more followers. Then maybe my matches will see how cool and popular I am. It's very much pointless. You'll never be popular enough. Without question I've removed the vast majority of stress from my life by ditching social media. Frankly my life is amazing. But if I'm staring at what other people have all day I'll never recognize it. Everyone will post 'just engaged' photos , no one is posting 'our marriage has been really rough, but I don't want to move back in with my parents'.
- earthboundkid 6y ago
  HN is social media.
  - incompatible 6y ago
    I don't think it would qualify, since there's no connection between users' profiles. You can't set up a "friends" list, or any other kind of group.
    - briefcomment 6y ago
      Regardless of whether it's social media or not, HN is a huge digital waste of time. Try to think of more than 10 posts that really improved your life over the years. Now realize that you probably look at more than 50 HN posts a day. I would spend much less time on HN, but it's an addiction, like most things digital.
bridanp 6y ago
It's sounds silly, but the way I've broken the phone addiction is with a watch. I've got it paired as a family member through my wife's phone, and it has a cell plan so the only phone number I have is through the watch. My work requires me to have a mobile "phone" and I get a stipend for having the service, so I'm required to have something. This serves that purpose, but for my mental health, the mindless scrolling and surfing are gone because the apps on this thing are too small for my middle age eyes to bother with. And with work internet access being restricted, I've pretty much broken the smartphone habit. Yes feels like an expensive way to break a habit. I agree, but all things factored in, it meets every requirement and gives me a lot of hours back in the day for what you mentioned: reading, exercising, study.
- mlac 6y ago
  This is also my experience. Since getting a watch (with LTE) I’m much more willing to leave my phone in the house or car on walks or when I’m out. I have a phone too - it’s just necessary for when I travel for work / if I need to do anything while away from the computer. I guess it’s phases of connectedness - an iPad let’s me be more mobile than my computer. My phone let’s me be more mobile than my iPad, and my watch covers the rest. Do I need this level of connectedness? Probably 3x per year. But those three times are absolutely critical and it gives me peace of mind if I’m on vacation - if my watch isn’t ringing I’m free to do whatever it is in front of me. I did the digital minimalism thing (and need to do it again soon), but a watch is a nice forcing function. And calls have to be short because they are on speaker phone (or EarPods / Bluetooth, which overall is a good setup). If apple keeps going the way they are going, I will need a very strong argument to get my kid a smartphone in 10 years when I can get them a watch that allows them to make calls, send limited texts, and not get wrapped up in social media / taking photos all the time.
- redisman 6y ago
  What watch? Apple? I like that idea
Waterluvian 6y ago
Boredom is amazing. I spent four hours today demolishing a deck alone. I was afraid to break my phone so I left it. Four hours of work without music or podcast. My brain went to all kinds of places and I solved like five different coding problems I was faced with at work. I should really bill my employer.
tommilukkarinen 6y ago
I am trying to cure myself with a surrogate. The surrogate is Facebook Oculus Quest VR. This might seem funny at first, but there are some advantages: while you stare at the screen, you also move at the same time, which I feel is important for health. The battery runs after an hour or so, and you have to put the device away. At this point I usually feel the need to do something again, but I'm no longer 'after work tired', and can do something productive like go jogging or do house chores. The experiment is still going on, I feel it is promising.

Syonyk 6y ago

I've gotten in the habit of turning mine off regularly. I'll just turn it off in the evening and turn it on in the morning if I don't need an alarm (which... I have an alarm clock, I just tend to not use it). I use it mostly for person to person communication and kid photos (the only things on my home screen are Messages, Signal, Hangouts, Element, the actual phone app, and the camera - everything else is buried over in the App Library), I've got most distraction websites blocked with 1BlockerX (not that it's hard to get around, but it's a good hurdle to jump), and about the only notifications I get are messages from people, plus emails on infrequent accounts (main account is poll only, no notifications). It works well, though I still struggle with how much time can go vanishing down the rabbit hole of "I'm bored, I wonder what's on the internet today..." I really need to get a "house phone" set up on an old cell phone. Get one of those "You only pay if you use it" plans, though I expect the spammers and scammers would cost me a lot of money that way.

OJFord 6y ago
> Get one of those "You only pay if you use it" plans, though I expect the spammers and scammers would cost me a lot of money that way. I don't know what country you're in, (here in the UK I'd expect anyone would call that 'Pay As You Go (PAYG)') but could spammers and scammers really cost you anything? By calling/texting you? Even for pan-European stuff only the initiator pays these days.
- g_p 6y ago
  In the US, without an inclusive calls plan (i.e. what you call a contract in the UK), both caller and recipient pay - it appears that you pay for "air time" (time in an inbound or outbound call). Most people will be on a contract with unlimited "air time", which effectively gives unlimited inbound and outbound calls without charge. Operator billing models are seldom rooted in reality, and often are quite counter productive - 4G originally was a "pay extra" feature, despite the fact it is in an operator's interest to get users onto 4G due to the increased spectral efficiency, and better performance with weaker signals (so less complaints). They designated VoLTE (4G HD calling) as a premium feature for contract users, but it actually reduces the load on the legacy voice network. And don't start me with WiFi Calling, which is also often a contract premium feature, but actually trunks the call over a connection the user already pays for (and avoids using the cellular network!) - common sense plays little part in how operator billing works. In the UK look up the "termination rate" if you're interested - this was the mechanism through which the receiving side of the call made money and was able to offer receiving of calls for free.

Jeff_Brown 6y ago

News, asynchronous communication, and other media have a payoff structure not unlike a slot machine's. It can be genuinely hard to determine whether one's consumption of any of them is irrational.

nicbou 6y ago
I forgot who said checking notifications is like pulling the slot machine lever, but it's an apt comparison.
- klondike_klive 6y ago
  Sounds like a Douglas Rushkoff-ism.

dan-robertson 6y ago

One silly trick: put your phone into greyscale mode. Without the colours, a lot of the addictive time sinks are just less exciting.

hypertele-Xii 6y ago
Hacker News without orange? Oh my.
- ISL 6y ago
  You might not be aware, but it is possible to change the color of your top-bar in your profile once you have more than 250 karma.
  - Rerarom 6y ago
    Not the parent poster, but thanks, I had missed that.
Syonyk 6y ago
Indeed! And the "BRIGHT RED WARNING NOTIFICATION SOMETHING TO CHECK!" bubbles aren't nearly so grating either. They're still present, easy to read, but not as visually abrasive. What's really funny, on iOS, at least, is that the accessibility settings persist across device upgrades. You can configure a triple tap of the home button (or power button on newer devices) to toggle the accessibility option, so you can toggle quickly between greyscale and full color. This is nice if you're showing people photos, though I do tend to forget to switch it back. I set up the option for someone on their phone years ago, and they'd apparently not used it much, because they entirely forgot I'd done it. On a phone or two later in their upgrade cycle, he had it laying on the table (locked), so I reached over and triple tapped the power button. And the setting had persisted all these years such that it still jumped to greyscale! There are very, very few things that you can't do with a modern smartphone when it's in greyscale - any sort of colorblind aware application should be distinguishable without color details, and if you're not showing photos to people, it's entirely possible to go months in greyscale. I suggest trying it out! (however, if you take a screenshot to show off your fancy new greyscale scheme, be aware that they're still taken in color)

grecy 6y ago

That is the main reason I don't have a phone. I know that I'm addicted to the internet and screens, and I know I'd be that guy compulsively picking up my phone every 30 seconds to see if something is going on. Doubly so if I were in a social situation where it was "easier" to stare at my phone than actually talk to humans. I think of it a lot like a recovering alcoholic not wanting to go into a bar - it's just best to avoid the temptation altogether. It can be inconvenient not have a phone from time to time, but overall I think my life is better without one. Whenever I'm asked for my number and I explain I don't actually have a phone, literally every single person gushes "OMG, I wish I could get rid of mine!". That helps keeps me motivated to deal with the inconvenience. (Like people complaining about horrid hangovers to recovering alcoholics)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ryan-allen 6y ago

I have on the odd occasion switched back to a feature phone. My longest streak was about 9 months and it was an interesting experience. For the first week I found myself looking for it in situations I never noticed, for example while waiting for my coffee to be made. Instead I had to find other things to do, like observe my surroundings, observe other people, be with my thoughts. There are quite a few things that are _very_ handy having a smart phone around, though. Like Google Maps, or internet banking, but these can be mitigated by having an inexpensive secondary plan and keeping your 'smart phone' in your car, and most others can be managed by a web browser, _when you are at a computer_. I have even considered what it might be like not having a phone at all for a while, and how odd would that be? I got my first phone at 16 years old and then I was able to contact friends to find out where they were if they were late, or to inform others that I was late, yet it was not very long ago that if you planned to meet someone you were both uncontactable while attempting to meet up. It used to be a thing that you'd hang around for 30 or 60 minutes to see if your friend would 'show up' but I can't imagine that happening these days, for better or worse.

ryan-allen 6y ago
And I just droppped my 4 month old new Pixel and it's broken. The new experiment begins, I guess!

nicbou 6y ago

Getting rid of notifications (banners and badges) goes a long way. Now I only get them for instant messaging, and I don't respond to messages when I'm with someone else. I realised that I don't need to check emails as they arrive. Very few things require my attention. I also removed time sink apps, with the exception of reading apps (I read myself to sleep with them). I also stopped following everyone on some social media, so the feeds are empty, but I'm logged out anyway. This has worked reasonably well. I am not a phone addict anymore, because my phone doesn't feed the addiction.