4 ms·

I've been experimenting with a "no phone" protocol for a few months now. It has been amazing. Only occasionally problematic/inconvenient, mostly miss the GPS an

I've been experimenting with a "no phone" protocol for a few months now. It has been amazing. Only occasionally problematic/inconvenient, mostly miss the GPS and music. Most things I used to do on phone I simply do on a laptop. But not constantly grabbing for a phone and staring at a screen... priceless.

543g43g43 4y ago
>But not constantly grabbing for a phone and staring at a screen... priceless. And once the spell is broken, you find yourself staring at people stumbling around, tied to their tiny screens.
null0ranje 4y ago
One of the big things keeping me from going down this road is the need to carry around a phone for 2FA purposes. Is there anything that can fill that gap?
- jjav 4y ago
  TOTP if at all possible. Then you can run the code calculator on your laptop or wherever most convenient for you, not them.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  yubikey type things? we were using little blackberry-format devices for 2FA in the previous century.
- factsarelolz 4y ago
  Hard token, yubikey
- glogla 4y ago
  Yeah, around here (EU) every bank decided you need to have an app to be able to do anything with your account or pay using card online. You don't need just a phone, but a smartphone.
- latchkey 4y ago
  Raivo runs just fine on my desktop, although it does ask for my thumbprint randomly (known issue). If you're using 2FA with SMS, just stop, or switch to something like Google Voice.
- chunk_waffle 4y ago
  Many sites don't support hardware tokens, and some sites such as banks require and only allow SMS 2FA. I even planned to switch banks and the two others near me also required a cell phone SMS 2FA for online banking with no other alternatives. Online banking is far too beneficial to give up (traveling abroad, checking balance, moving funds around) and there are other sites besides banks that do this too. It's infuriating.
LAC-Tech 4y ago
I still use a small mp3 player - no video just a tiny digital display. They're so superior to any smart phone for actually playing music. Tiny, fits in any pocket easily, volume and be adjusted and tracks changed without looking at it...
- jabthedang 4y ago
jjav 4y ago
> mostly miss the GPS and music I mostly go phoneless if at all possible. I use an old ipod nano for music. It's much better at it than the phone because it is so tiny and thin (and has a headphone jack). For GPS my watch (Garmin) has GPS.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago
  Yep, my 10-year old uses a 17-year old nano for music. I've stockpiled a few 30-pin cables. With a USB A-toC adaptor it works fine on M1 MBP and is fully supported! It blew my mind that just a year or two ago I plugged it in and it got a firmware update. The only worry I have is whether I'll be able to replace the battery when it finally needs it.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    Plenty of batteries on ebay and amazon!
- floren 4y ago
  > For GPS my watch (Garmin) has GPS. Your watch can do navigation? Without being tethered to a phone? I'm interested, which model?
  - jjav 4y ago
    Oh, no I didn't mean navigation software. It has GPS, to show location and to record activity paths for bike rides, runs, hikes.
Unbeliever69 4y ago
I used a flip-phone from 2011-2018 after standing in line day-one to buy an iPhone. Those were very productive years of my life.
rootusrootus 4y ago
The next step after this epiphany is to realize you can do this without actually giving up the phone. Just because it's in your pocket doesn't mean you need to pull it out constantly and look at it. It's just a tool, relegate it to that position in your life and don't use it like a pacifier.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  That's not realistic. The phone is calling out, begging you to pay attention to it, and makes itself more difficult to use the less you want to be entangled. You just have to put it away. If it's a tool, treat it like a tool. You don't carry a hammer in your pocket all day.
  - operatingthetan 4y ago
    Nah, you just need to break the addictions to that apps that cause that.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    Your phone calls out to you? I guess when I receive a message it does. But that's why very few apps are allowed push notifications.
  - Jorengarenar 4y ago
    >The phone is calling out, begging you to pay attention to it No, it doesn't; it's you who carves to escape into the phone. I wish it would call me sometimes to at least remember to keep it charged.
  - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
    Turn off notifications, put it on do not disturb mode, whatever. And many people do carry a pocket knife or multitool in their pocket all day.
  - RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
    The underlying issue is lack of self-discipline (to not over-consume things like the phone), not the phone itself. Removing the phone is treating the symptoms instead of the issue.
SN76477 4y ago
I have considered a large ipad to replace my phone. Still able to get calls, gps and take pics but with much less convenience than a pocket device. Somehow we have placed all of our faith in these devices.
rr888 4y ago
Phone without a sim card. You'll get GPS and music too. :) Just have to avoid wifi.
lo_zamoyski 4y ago
It's possible to argue that dispensing with the habit of carrying and using a music player is also a potential win. What's one of the reasons smartphones can be a problem? That they distract and disconnect you from your environment and absorb you in something other than what's around you. Music players can also do that. If you turn the music off, it'll open your ears to the sounds of your environment. If you try it for an extended period of time, you may develop a greater attentiveness and auditory acuteness. Each of these devices, while not bad on its own and in itself, does provide an opportunity for the device to lay claim to one or more of our senses. The multiverse is a step further in that direction, a further bubble of engineered experience disconnected from reality and yes almost posing as reality. This does not bode well for the intellect as nothing in the intellect was not first in the senses. Our intuitions are at their best when seeded by the passive experience of the world, and if our experience is constantly flooded by media and engineered simulations often of a very unhealthy variety, then our alignment with reality will be off. This sort of passive perception of reality is at the heart of contemplation which is what true leisure (not recreation) is all about. To quote Josef Pieper[0], "the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul." [0] https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/408300-happiness-and-contemplation https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/408300-happiness-and-c...
- gspencley 4y ago
  Context matters. Being someone with rather extreme "misophonia", in a noisy city environment disconnecting from the sound of my environment is a necessity for my mental health. Also as a life-long musician, music is one thing that makes life worth living for me in the first place. If I don't have a music player with me I'm playing music in my head anyway unless some noisy car horn, screaming child or even the sound of someone else talking takes me out of it, triggering an autism/misophonia driven rage. But if I'm out hiking in the backcountry, which is a something my wife and I do a couple of times of a year to escape the city and connect with nature ... absolutely we leave the music player at home.

543g43g43 4y ago

>But not constantly grabbing for a phone and staring at a screen... priceless. And once the spell is broken, you find yourself staring at people stumbling around, tied to their tiny screens.

null0ranje 4y ago

One of the big things keeping me from going down this road is the need to carry around a phone for 2FA purposes. Is there anything that can fill that gap?

jjav 4y ago
TOTP if at all possible. Then you can run the code calculator on your laptop or wherever most convenient for you, not them.
082349872349872 4y ago
yubikey type things? we were using little blackberry-format devices for 2FA in the previous century.
factsarelolz 4y ago
Hard token, yubikey
glogla 4y ago
Yeah, around here (EU) every bank decided you need to have an app to be able to do anything with your account or pay using card online. You don't need just a phone, but a smartphone.
latchkey 4y ago
Raivo runs just fine on my desktop, although it does ask for my thumbprint randomly (known issue). If you're using 2FA with SMS, just stop, or switch to something like Google Voice.
chunk_waffle 4y ago
Many sites don't support hardware tokens, and some sites such as banks require and only allow SMS 2FA. I even planned to switch banks and the two others near me also required a cell phone SMS 2FA for online banking with no other alternatives. Online banking is far too beneficial to give up (traveling abroad, checking balance, moving funds around) and there are other sites besides banks that do this too. It's infuriating.

LAC-Tech 4y ago

I still use a small mp3 player - no video just a tiny digital display. They're so superior to any smart phone for actually playing music. Tiny, fits in any pocket easily, volume and be adjusted and tracks changed without looking at it...

jabthedang 4y ago

jjav 4y ago

> mostly miss the GPS and music I mostly go phoneless if at all possible. I use an old ipod nano for music. It's much better at it than the phone because it is so tiny and thin (and has a headphone jack). For GPS my watch (Garmin) has GPS.

Kon-Peki 4y ago
Yep, my 10-year old uses a 17-year old nano for music. I've stockpiled a few 30-pin cables. With a USB A-toC adaptor it works fine on M1 MBP and is fully supported! It blew my mind that just a year or two ago I plugged it in and it got a firmware update. The only worry I have is whether I'll be able to replace the battery when it finally needs it.
- fragmede 4y ago
  Plenty of batteries on ebay and amazon!
floren 4y ago
> For GPS my watch (Garmin) has GPS. Your watch can do navigation? Without being tethered to a phone? I'm interested, which model?
- jjav 4y ago
  Oh, no I didn't mean navigation software. It has GPS, to show location and to record activity paths for bike rides, runs, hikes.

Unbeliever69 4y ago

I used a flip-phone from 2011-2018 after standing in line day-one to buy an iPhone. Those were very productive years of my life.

rootusrootus 4y ago

The next step after this epiphany is to realize you can do this without actually giving up the phone. Just because it's in your pocket doesn't mean you need to pull it out constantly and look at it. It's just a tool, relegate it to that position in your life and don't use it like a pacifier.

pessimizer 4y ago
That's not realistic. The phone is calling out, begging you to pay attention to it, and makes itself more difficult to use the less you want to be entangled. You just have to put it away. If it's a tool, treat it like a tool. You don't carry a hammer in your pocket all day.
- operatingthetan 4y ago
  Nah, you just need to break the addictions to that apps that cause that.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  Your phone calls out to you? I guess when I receive a message it does. But that's why very few apps are allowed push notifications.
- Jorengarenar 4y ago
  >The phone is calling out, begging you to pay attention to it No, it doesn't; it's you who carves to escape into the phone. I wish it would call me sometimes to at least remember to keep it charged.
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago
  Turn off notifications, put it on do not disturb mode, whatever. And many people do carry a pocket knife or multitool in their pocket all day.
- RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
  The underlying issue is lack of self-discipline (to not over-consume things like the phone), not the phone itself. Removing the phone is treating the symptoms instead of the issue.

SN76477 4y ago

I have considered a large ipad to replace my phone. Still able to get calls, gps and take pics but with much less convenience than a pocket device. Somehow we have placed all of our faith in these devices.

rr888 4y ago

Phone without a sim card. You'll get GPS and music too. :) Just have to avoid wifi.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago

It's possible to argue that dispensing with the habit of carrying and using a music player is also a potential win. What's one of the reasons smartphones can be a problem? That they distract and disconnect you from your environment and absorb you in something other than what's around you. Music players can also do that. If you turn the music off, it'll open your ears to the sounds of your environment. If you try it for an extended period of time, you may develop a greater attentiveness and auditory acuteness. Each of these devices, while not bad on its own and in itself, does provide an opportunity for the device to lay claim to one or more of our senses. The multiverse is a step further in that direction, a further bubble of engineered experience disconnected from reality and yes almost posing as reality. This does not bode well for the intellect as nothing in the intellect was not first in the senses. Our intuitions are at their best when seeded by the passive experience of the world, and if our experience is constantly flooded by media and engineered simulations often of a very unhealthy variety, then our alignment with reality will be off. This sort of passive perception of reality is at the heart of contemplation which is what true leisure (not recreation) is all about. To quote Josef Pieper[0], "the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul." [0] https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/408300-happiness-and-contemplation https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/408300-happiness-and-c...

gspencley 4y ago
Context matters. Being someone with rather extreme "misophonia", in a noisy city environment disconnecting from the sound of my environment is a necessity for my mental health. Also as a life-long musician, music is one thing that makes life worth living for me in the first place. If I don't have a music player with me I'm playing music in my head anyway unless some noisy car horn, screaming child or even the sound of someone else talking takes me out of it, triggering an autism/misophonia driven rage. But if I'm out hiking in the backcountry, which is a something my wife and I do a couple of times of a year to escape the city and connect with nature ... absolutely we leave the music player at home.