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Why I Use a Dumbphone in 2025 (and Why You Should Too)

38 points by rd_wei 1y ago

crypt1d 1y ago
In general I support this but the idea starts to fall apart real quick if your primary place of work is in front of a computer.
- ale42 1y ago
  You mean because you can access the same kind of attention-damaging content from the computer?
- Fredkin 1y ago
  I've never had a smart phone and all my work is in front of computers. I was a bit worried during COVID lockdowns that I'd be forced to get one, but didn't have to in the end. Occasionally it can be annoying in other ways for example: 1) you buy a piece of hardware (printer, cctv cameras etc.) that can only be set up with a phone or you have to work harder to find the web interface. 2) Banks - banks really suck. 3) Companies I work for who use VPNs where you need a SMS or authenticator, however this is usually easy to get around with a web authenticator and some companies have let me use a YubiKey instead which is actually much less hassle. 4) Car parking meters where they discriminate - I tend to avoid these ones. 5) QR code restaurant menus - hate these but usually can get around it by just asking somebody for a paper menu. 6) Phasing out of 3G causing low reception - this is annoying because there are fewer good dumbphones that have 4G modems. Also I hate Android and Android based phones which come with facebook app and social media stuff installed so I'm a bit more limited in options. However, I managed to get an Alcatel flip phone which has 4G and it's a bit buggy but reception is now good. I'm surprised that I'm able to get by, given the enormous pressure everyone is put under to use a smart phone, but it gives me hope that it hasn't worked and you can still get by in society without them. It would be pretty terrible if everyone HAD to agree to a google or Apple EULA just to be a functioning citizen.
puttycat 1y ago
The main problem is that once you minimally need only one app which is only available for smartphones (banking, whatsapp, etc.) it's game-over. It's all or nothing. For example, my bank requires that you install an app on your phone to approve any online purcharse. Game over.
- _Algernon_ 1y ago
  You can get pretty far by "dumbiphying" your smartphone. Uninstall / disable the web browser, social media, but keep 2fa apps and other essentials.
  - puttycat 1y ago
    Right, but since we're dealing with addiction, I'd just reinstall it after 30 minutes.
    - Aerbil313 1y ago
      There are 2 bypass-free self-restriction (or self-liberation!) solutions for the iPhone. The first is is supervised MDM. If you have a Mac you can do it yourself (though you need to learn iPhone MDM). You can also pay companies like TechLockdown, they'll give you a customized remote-controlled profile to install that is not removable at a weak moment. You can set a lock with delay. When you need to wait 6 hours to change the settings, you won't be changing your settings to allow $ADDICTIVE_APP. The second option is much more complicated and has some caveats, like an inability to update apps, but I'll explain it since nobody seem to know about it. There is a way to turn an iPhone into a dumbphone, while keeping your banking app, without a Mac, for free. Go to Settings > Screen Time: - Set up a PIN for Screen Time. You’ll be asked to provide a recovery account. Create another Apple account with a password hard to memorize, like sjhr3762962826. Write that down. - In Content Restrictions > App Store, Media, Web, & Games > Web Content, set it to Only Approved Websites. Add all the websites you need to use in your daily life. Start simple, you'll quickly discover which ones you actually need. I'll let you in on a little secret: You don't need news.ycombinator.com in your pocket. - In Content Restrictions > iTunes & App Store purchases, disallow Installing Apps. - Personally, I also delete all apps that have any sort of infinite online content (even Wikipedia). - Set up Downtime for when you are supposed to be asleep. - Set up Always Allowed for critical apps which you might need even during your usual sleep hours (Health app, WhatsApp, Google Maps, etc.) - Final step: Let a very close person (like family member) change the Screen Time PIN, and let him write it down somewhere safe. Then give the password and the PIN to the person for safekeeping. When you need to change the settings (you want to add another allowed website, you want to install a new app, etc.) ask that person to make the change. There is a way you can not rely on another person, too. I won't detail it here, but it involves timelocking the Apple account's password and the Screen Time PIN. See https://github.com/rayanamal/timelock https://github.com/rayanamal/timelock With this setup, you can’t change the Screen Time settings yourself, and you can’t reset the PIN using “I forgot the PIN” button either.
freehorse 1y ago
All this sounds great, but it makes little sense when the primary way of communication with others nowadays is through chatting apps (WhatsApp signal l etc) rather than SMS or phone calls. I could as well not have a phone at all or leave it home.
- ale42 1y ago
  Well, maybe that also needs to change. Try to check how much time you need to spend to solve something with chatting, vs. how much it takes with a phone call. In many cases the call is 10 times quicker, and it's a more natural interaction. Sure, chats have their uses cases too and are a great function to have in addition to calling, but the fact that people now tend to use chats for just everything IMHO needs to be reconsidered.
  - herbst 1y ago
    For me chatting and not calling is about distraction. Very few people are allowed to distract me on their own terms. Sounds weird but I got used to it after a burnout and plenty of travelling. The thing is that a call disrupts me whatever I am doing while on a chat I can answer whenever I have time physically and mentally. Usually the next time I run by my phone. I would not want to go back
    - linsomniac 1y ago
      My wife is a nurse and is basically unreachable via voice while she is working, but texting she can get back to me when she isn't actively with a patient. A company was trying to follow up on a contact form. They called me while I was in a meeting, I used my "screen call" feature to tell them to call me back in 2 hours. They called me back in 1.5 hours when I was in another meeting, didn't leave a voice mail or call me back. A simple text of "When are you available to speak" would have been 1000x more productive. Yes, there are definitely cases where a phone call is faster than text. But the opposite is also true.
  - aboringusername 1y ago
    Phone calling is great and all, however, for complaince, safety and monitoring purposes having things in writing as a direct evidence trail is, sadly, something that is essential. Too many people like to use phone calls as a way of bypassing GDPR (especially around consent to record calls). I know businesses that rely on phone calls as a primary method of communication as they know it's easier to bypass some degree of record keeping. So I'll take my emails/letters/writing over phone calls any day.
ivape 1y ago
you actually start listening to the person in front of you As shocking as this will sound, there really is no person in front of many people. The human is desperately trying to feel part of a body of people, but the solutions we have (social media, internet media diet) is the least nutrient rich thing imaginable.
- magic_hamster 1y ago
  This always makes me chuckle because way before smartphones, cheeky teenagers would defiantly ignore anyone and everyone. Having a screen in your face is just an excuse for some people to completely ignore their environment.
- lrvick 1y ago
  People can go to a board game night, hiking, swimming, classes, interest events, etc. The ways people met in person before the internet still all exist. There are always ways to meet other human beings unless you are medically bound to a bed or have to travel a lot, in which case find internet friends. People you follow are not friends.
nehal3m 1y ago
I’m always tempted by the idea. I like the focus on attention span, compartmentalizing functionality (a phone is just a phone, not a notebook, camera, movie theater and encyclopedia) and less tracking by third parties. The thing is modern smartphones are just so damn useful. I find it hard to swallow that I’d have to let go of all that usefulness because it’s detrimental in some respects. Setting it up such that it works only in your favor is relatively simple (grey scale, notifications off, insert strategy here) but then keeping it that way and preventing feature creep back to square one is hard. It requires constant vigilance. It feels like the ol’ “adversarially wrestling usefulness out of a trillion dollar company”.
yyx 1y ago
> TikTok, Instagram Shorts, YouTube Reels Just don't install these apps? There are tons of useful apps that don't require your constant attention.
- puttycat 1y ago
  The OP correctly mentions that we're dealing with real addiction here. Telling an addict to "just not do it" is futile.
  - yyx 1y ago
    Damn, I guess I skimmed the article with my short attention span :). He's right, but the title is clickbaity.
  - teekert 1y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feh1ft2g9OM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feh1ft2g9OM
  - card_zero 1y ago
    Where does the unattributed, axis-doesn't-start-at-zero chart of declining attention span come from? It looks like there were five sample years since 2000, but who was sampled, and "attention span" was measured how? "As the chart shows, attention spans are plummeting" is not very impressive when the chart is just a line that goes down and some mysterious times in seconds. Tineye had nothing.
  - sceptic123 1y ago
    But not installing/using or blocking those apps is as much of an alternative as using a dumb phone.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      Sure, in the same was as "eat less" is a viable alternative for the obesity epidemic. But it's not a solution. Obviously, that just won't work for people who have a propensity to over-consume, or people who have a propensity to scroll in this case. If it were that easy, then everyone would do it. Then we'd all hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
herbst 1y ago
I have a weird relationship to notifications. They kinda stress me, but I know as long as there are no notifications all systems are working fine and I can do whatever I want. What I would need is a dump smart watch with SIM card and proper battery lifetime and proper API so I can build from scratch and not start with android pushing everything on me.
INTPenis 1y ago
In some countries I'm sure you can get away with it. But I have a friend here in Sweden who tries hard to avoid our eID monopoly "BankID", and also doesn't use credit cards, and I see how he struggles with everyday things. I wasn't put on this earth for a short time to struggle with such mundane things.
- lrvick 1y ago
  Fight for the right to opt out of toxic business practices to make it easier for the disabled or those that cannot advocate for themselves. That is giving society value.
brador 1y ago
My sooution: If the phone is face down it’s work time. Brain automatically associates.
- ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y ago
  My solution: make your phone hard to open. if you use a long password that is difficult to enter, you will use it much less. then on the phone, you can use other apps to help modify your behavior, firefox with leechblock, etc.
  - brador 1y ago
    This doesn’t work, on the streets you need access fast. Transit, shopping, even camera to record something fast. Typing a long pass simply takes far too long at the wrong times.
    - lrvick 1y ago
      I spend plenty of time on streets of lots of cities, with no cell phone at all, so I hardly see a slow-access phone as limiting either. I could get a camera maybe, or one of the tiny emergency 911 keychain phones that do not require a cell phone plan... but a smartphone? Why is that needed? I use planes, trains, taxis, rideshare, hotels all over the world and shop all over the world and never been denied anything for not having a phone.
    - ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y ago
      Yeah, I enable quicker forms of authentication if I know I am going to need to access my phone often (like when using maps, or the camera). Then I set it back when I notice it doesn't prompt for a password. I think it is a good practice from a security perspective as well. I am used to doing these things though. For example, I use NoScript in the browser with deny all as the default setting. To me, it is worth taking some extra steps to prevent unwanted alteration of my behavior.
jhrmnn 1y ago
One thing that'd be hard to give up is the camera. I have two small kids. I captured so many beautiful moments only thanks to a camera always being around.
- lrvick 1y ago
  I just have cheap digital cameras laying around the house anyone can use. If anything you may get -more- pictures this way.
magic_hamster 1y ago
Social media is horrible, and I rarely use them. However there are some truly necessary apps on my smartphone that I just can't deal without, namely an authenticator that lets me log into services, and Whatsapp which lots of businesses and some government offices use for formal support and contact.
jfritsch1984 1y ago
I‘ve got an iPhone and I use the focus mode and App Limits to great success. If I start Instagram during the day, for example, a gray screen appears and reminds me to think again. It works great against my reflexes. Also no push notifications from these apps. Probably not for total addicts, but it got me back into focus mode for the last 6 months. I built 3 apps while working a main job.
huksley 1y ago
Social media apps can have notifications turned off, so you check them when you voluntarily go and open them. Unfortunately for email the problem still persists, tons of newsletters and updates and other not so important emails and really urgent ones get drowned in that. What I typically do is I snooze everything for 2 hours and have a productive session without interruption.
redcannon218 1y ago
The claims about privacy are, at best, dubious. While it's true that there are less opportunities to track you through leaky / malicious apps, "dumbphones" remain, well, phones, with data retention laws in almost all countries in the world (and the subsequent leaks / hacks, see the recent Salt typhoon events for a good example) plus extra vulnerabilities due to poorly-developed Operating Systems.
- veddox 1y ago
  That depends on what threat scenario you're looking at. If your government wants to track you, they'll find a way, regardless of what phone you're using (or not). But the privacy gains of not installing a load of third-party apps from a dozen different data-selling businesses (or using an operating system built by the mother of all data-selling businesses) are very substantial.
card_zero 1y ago
I use a dumbphone, but it's not because I'm worried I might be having too much fun, or because I want to have any healthy relationships or pay attention to things around me. It's just that every damn business wants to install its app in my pocket, often for flimsy reasons. It seems proper to resist. For instance my local shopping mall used to have maps, on physical boards. Then it installed big touchscreens. Do they display the map, and update every day? No! The only thing they show when touched is a giant QR code to get shoppers to install the app that has the map on it (and presumably ads and tracking too).
debuggerson 1y ago
I know someone who doesn’t use food delivery apps, doesn’t shop online, and lives very minimally. For them, a dumbphone works just fine. But for most of us, life is already deeply tied to apps: banking, transport, messaging, work. A lot of things aren't even optional anymore — many services expect you to use an app. Once you go convenient, it’s really hard to go back. You don’t just lose access to entertainment — you lose infrastructure.
- lrvick 1y ago
  You can use webapps for all of those things. You do not need Android or iOS for anything. A appless browser on a laptop or linux tablet will do just fine.
  - debuggerson 1y ago
    But when come to phone, webapp is much more troublesome to use, not friendly for phone user. But after all, it’s the lifestyle that you choose that decide it.
    - lrvick 1y ago
      You can save most webapps to your home screen and they then look/feel similar to native apps if you really want to go that route. Bonus: they also work on non android/iOS platforms
WindyMiller 1y ago
I was drawn to this idea but then I realised that the number of phone calls/texts I made/received was so low I would essentially be carrying the phone in case of emergencies. Or, more accurately, because I didn't feel comfortable being without a phone for any length of time. (Remember when people used to complain about all mobile phones, because they felt they shouldn't be contactable all the time? Kind of remarkable that the same device is now the 'disconnected' option!) Now I carry an Android phone with an epaper display and a physical keyboard, which feels like a really good middle ground to me. It's good at the things that are important to me (reading, writing, communication), can do whatever other essentials I need it to in a scrape, and is absolute dogshit at scrolling through nonsense. The device itself feels rather less polished than the Pixel I was using before, but since I'm using it much less that doesn't seem like a problem. My old pre-smartphone phones always felt kind of janky too!
- lrvick 1y ago
  In a home emergency I pick up one of many DECT wireless phones around the house In an emergency in public, I yell "Help!" and 20 phones come out. In a major emergency when cell phone lines are down I can tune to the frequency of my local police and yell at them all to come to me. They never deploy any useful encryption on those things. So far so good. Even when I totaled a vehicle. Always reliably other people around with emergency phones so I do not need one.
yyx 1y ago
One simple solution is to buy a cheap used phone. Every app is made for flagships now. You'll still be able to use the apps, but everything will lag.
veddox 1y ago
I've been thinking about moving to a dumb phone again for the past few months, but so far I've decided against it, for three reasons: 1. Signal/Whatsapp/Threema: biggest reason by far - while I message much less than many others, these platforms are just the way a lot of (group) communication works nowadays. It is possible to go without, but it causes so much hassle when organising things or trying to stay up to date with what's happening in a group, and would disrupt my international friendships. 2. Maps & public transport apps: are just super useful to have available, especially if you regularly travel in places you don't know (well). 3. Camera: This one I'm still a bit undecided on, but I think I would miss not having it at hand. However, I do try to actively give my phone as little space in my life as possible. I have no social networks on it (I don't have any left by now, anyway), and no other apps that involve scrolling. And I continue to think about how I can avoid distractions from it.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
whitehexagon 1y ago
I found the data on attention span really interesting and quite shocking. I'm also driving a 'dumbphone' but disappointed with HMD's / Nokia's definition. It still has a fb app, yuk! and tries to do things with data connection (I had to get a sim with data disabled, not so easy these days). The few games on there trigger some kind of billing charge if you play them a few times. Oh and no developer SDK. What is nice is the peace and silence it has brought me. I was quite unsure at first, especially having been an App developer for many years. But now I am very happy to have escaped notification hell. I also dont want to live in a world where I have to carry a 'smart' tracking device around to be able to partake in society. When my bank insisted on an App I waved my dumb phone, and suddenly I was able to continue without. I am hoping it will be enough to avoid being forced into a digital-euro tracking currency. But too many people take the easy option, and so I am sure I fight a losing battle. But I wonder at what point carrying a smartphone will become a legal requirement? provided by the government? or appear in public libraries for us odd-balls that value privacy. Probably they just make the dumbphones smarter, or illegal, like cash seems to be heading.
- card_zero 1y ago
  I found the data on attention span uncited and meaningless, but yes, certainly shocking. I wonder who made that chart and how the times were measured and who participated. Still, shocking, so I guess it did its job.
hrudham 1y ago
Many dumbphones only support technologies (2G, 3G, etc.) that are actively being deprecated at the moment. If you are using a modern one, you still get rid of many useful things like maps, Signal and WhatsApp (the latter I've found is sometimes critical for interacting with some companies that have migrated their support there, like my ISP). Are there dumbphones that support just those two features? If not, then I don't feel like moving over to one is realistic. Rather, just don't install whatever application is distracting you, and try simply turning notifications off. I still can't believe how many people simply don't have the willpower to do this. On the battery life point, when you remove a lot of this cruft, you'd be surprised how much gain back as well, since you're also not staring at the thing with the screen on all the time. I'm on a 5 year old iPhone mini that I'm still regularly getting two days out of. Another pet peeve: graphs should have axes that start at zero, or clearly point out why they are zoomed in. It's to easy to mislead readers otherwise, and great for making something sensational.
kennu 1y ago
I don't really know what to do with a dumbphone, since I don't get any phone calls or text messages any more. Everything goes through apps, email or web nowadays.
Milpotel 1y ago
> the battery life of a dumbphone is LEGENDARY. You literally only need to charge it once every three days at most But the battery of my cheap debloated Xiaomi lasts 5 days...
TruffleLabs 1y ago
I believe phones can be addictive. I do want to point out => "The attention span myth - No, the average human attention span is not 1 second less than that of the goldfish." https://uxpsychology.substack.com/p/the-attention-span-myth https://uxpsychology.substack.com/p/the-attention-span-myth

38 points by rd_wei 1y ago

In general I support this but the idea starts to fall apart real quick if your primary place of work is in front of a computer.

ale42 1y ago
You mean because you can access the same kind of attention-damaging content from the computer?
Fredkin 1y ago
I've never had a smart phone and all my work is in front of computers. I was a bit worried during COVID lockdowns that I'd be forced to get one, but didn't have to in the end. Occasionally it can be annoying in other ways for example: 1) you buy a piece of hardware (printer, cctv cameras etc.) that can only be set up with a phone or you have to work harder to find the web interface. 2) Banks - banks really suck. 3) Companies I work for who use VPNs where you need a SMS or authenticator, however this is usually easy to get around with a web authenticator and some companies have let me use a YubiKey instead which is actually much less hassle. 4) Car parking meters where they discriminate - I tend to avoid these ones. 5) QR code restaurant menus - hate these but usually can get around it by just asking somebody for a paper menu. 6) Phasing out of 3G causing low reception - this is annoying because there are fewer good dumbphones that have 4G modems. Also I hate Android and Android based phones which come with facebook app and social media stuff installed so I'm a bit more limited in options. However, I managed to get an Alcatel flip phone which has 4G and it's a bit buggy but reception is now good. I'm surprised that I'm able to get by, given the enormous pressure everyone is put under to use a smart phone, but it gives me hope that it hasn't worked and you can still get by in society without them. It would be pretty terrible if everyone HAD to agree to a google or Apple EULA just to be a functioning citizen.

puttycat 1y ago

The main problem is that once you minimally need only one app which is only available for smartphones (banking, whatsapp, etc.) it's game-over. It's all or nothing. For example, my bank requires that you install an app on your phone to approve any online purcharse. Game over.

_Algernon_ 1y ago
You can get pretty far by "dumbiphying" your smartphone. Uninstall / disable the web browser, social media, but keep 2fa apps and other essentials.
- puttycat 1y ago
  Right, but since we're dealing with addiction, I'd just reinstall it after 30 minutes.
  - Aerbil313 1y ago
    There are 2 bypass-free self-restriction (or self-liberation!) solutions for the iPhone. The first is is supervised MDM. If you have a Mac you can do it yourself (though you need to learn iPhone MDM). You can also pay companies like TechLockdown, they'll give you a customized remote-controlled profile to install that is not removable at a weak moment. You can set a lock with delay. When you need to wait 6 hours to change the settings, you won't be changing your settings to allow $ADDICTIVE_APP. The second option is much more complicated and has some caveats, like an inability to update apps, but I'll explain it since nobody seem to know about it. There is a way to turn an iPhone into a dumbphone, while keeping your banking app, without a Mac, for free. Go to Settings > Screen Time: - Set up a PIN for Screen Time. You’ll be asked to provide a recovery account. Create another Apple account with a password hard to memorize, like sjhr3762962826. Write that down. - In Content Restrictions > App Store, Media, Web, & Games > Web Content, set it to Only Approved Websites. Add all the websites you need to use in your daily life. Start simple, you'll quickly discover which ones you actually need. I'll let you in on a little secret: You don't need news.ycombinator.com in your pocket. - In Content Restrictions > iTunes & App Store purchases, disallow Installing Apps. - Personally, I also delete all apps that have any sort of infinite online content (even Wikipedia). - Set up Downtime for when you are supposed to be asleep. - Set up Always Allowed for critical apps which you might need even during your usual sleep hours (Health app, WhatsApp, Google Maps, etc.) - Final step: Let a very close person (like family member) change the Screen Time PIN, and let him write it down somewhere safe. Then give the password and the PIN to the person for safekeeping. When you need to change the settings (you want to add another allowed website, you want to install a new app, etc.) ask that person to make the change. There is a way you can not rely on another person, too. I won't detail it here, but it involves timelocking the Apple account's password and the Screen Time PIN. See https://github.com/rayanamal/timelock https://github.com/rayanamal/timelock With this setup, you can’t change the Screen Time settings yourself, and you can’t reset the PIN using “I forgot the PIN” button either.

freehorse 1y ago

All this sounds great, but it makes little sense when the primary way of communication with others nowadays is through chatting apps (WhatsApp signal l etc) rather than SMS or phone calls. I could as well not have a phone at all or leave it home.

ale42 1y ago
Well, maybe that also needs to change. Try to check how much time you need to spend to solve something with chatting, vs. how much it takes with a phone call. In many cases the call is 10 times quicker, and it's a more natural interaction. Sure, chats have their uses cases too and are a great function to have in addition to calling, but the fact that people now tend to use chats for just everything IMHO needs to be reconsidered.
- herbst 1y ago
  For me chatting and not calling is about distraction. Very few people are allowed to distract me on their own terms. Sounds weird but I got used to it after a burnout and plenty of travelling. The thing is that a call disrupts me whatever I am doing while on a chat I can answer whenever I have time physically and mentally. Usually the next time I run by my phone. I would not want to go back
  - linsomniac 1y ago
    My wife is a nurse and is basically unreachable via voice while she is working, but texting she can get back to me when she isn't actively with a patient. A company was trying to follow up on a contact form. They called me while I was in a meeting, I used my "screen call" feature to tell them to call me back in 2 hours. They called me back in 1.5 hours when I was in another meeting, didn't leave a voice mail or call me back. A simple text of "When are you available to speak" would have been 1000x more productive. Yes, there are definitely cases where a phone call is faster than text. But the opposite is also true.
- aboringusername 1y ago
  Phone calling is great and all, however, for complaince, safety and monitoring purposes having things in writing as a direct evidence trail is, sadly, something that is essential. Too many people like to use phone calls as a way of bypassing GDPR (especially around consent to record calls). I know businesses that rely on phone calls as a primary method of communication as they know it's easier to bypass some degree of record keeping. So I'll take my emails/letters/writing over phone calls any day.

ivape 1y ago

you actually start listening to the person in front of you As shocking as this will sound, there really is no person in front of many people. The human is desperately trying to feel part of a body of people, but the solutions we have (social media, internet media diet) is the least nutrient rich thing imaginable.

magic_hamster 1y ago
This always makes me chuckle because way before smartphones, cheeky teenagers would defiantly ignore anyone and everyone. Having a screen in your face is just an excuse for some people to completely ignore their environment.
lrvick 1y ago
People can go to a board game night, hiking, swimming, classes, interest events, etc. The ways people met in person before the internet still all exist. There are always ways to meet other human beings unless you are medically bound to a bed or have to travel a lot, in which case find internet friends. People you follow are not friends.

nehal3m 1y ago

I’m always tempted by the idea. I like the focus on attention span, compartmentalizing functionality (a phone is just a phone, not a notebook, camera, movie theater and encyclopedia) and less tracking by third parties. The thing is modern smartphones are just so damn useful. I find it hard to swallow that I’d have to let go of all that usefulness because it’s detrimental in some respects. Setting it up such that it works only in your favor is relatively simple (grey scale, notifications off, insert strategy here) but then keeping it that way and preventing feature creep back to square one is hard. It requires constant vigilance. It feels like the ol’ “adversarially wrestling usefulness out of a trillion dollar company”.

yyx 1y ago

> TikTok, Instagram Shorts, YouTube Reels Just don't install these apps? There are tons of useful apps that don't require your constant attention.

puttycat 1y ago
The OP correctly mentions that we're dealing with real addiction here. Telling an addict to "just not do it" is futile.
- yyx 1y ago
  Damn, I guess I skimmed the article with my short attention span :). He's right, but the title is clickbaity.
- teekert 1y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feh1ft2g9OM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feh1ft2g9OM
- card_zero 1y ago
  Where does the unattributed, axis-doesn't-start-at-zero chart of declining attention span come from? It looks like there were five sample years since 2000, but who was sampled, and "attention span" was measured how? "As the chart shows, attention spans are plummeting" is not very impressive when the chart is just a line that goes down and some mysterious times in seconds. Tineye had nothing.
- sceptic123 1y ago
  But not installing/using or blocking those apps is as much of an alternative as using a dumb phone.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    Sure, in the same was as "eat less" is a viable alternative for the obesity epidemic. But it's not a solution. Obviously, that just won't work for people who have a propensity to over-consume, or people who have a propensity to scroll in this case. If it were that easy, then everyone would do it. Then we'd all hold hands and sing Kumbaya.

herbst 1y ago

I have a weird relationship to notifications. They kinda stress me, but I know as long as there are no notifications all systems are working fine and I can do whatever I want. What I would need is a dump smart watch with SIM card and proper battery lifetime and proper API so I can build from scratch and not start with android pushing everything on me.

INTPenis 1y ago

In some countries I'm sure you can get away with it. But I have a friend here in Sweden who tries hard to avoid our eID monopoly "BankID", and also doesn't use credit cards, and I see how he struggles with everyday things. I wasn't put on this earth for a short time to struggle with such mundane things.

lrvick 1y ago
Fight for the right to opt out of toxic business practices to make it easier for the disabled or those that cannot advocate for themselves. That is giving society value.

brador 1y ago

My sooution: If the phone is face down it’s work time. Brain automatically associates.

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y ago
My solution: make your phone hard to open. if you use a long password that is difficult to enter, you will use it much less. then on the phone, you can use other apps to help modify your behavior, firefox with leechblock, etc.
- brador 1y ago
  This doesn’t work, on the streets you need access fast. Transit, shopping, even camera to record something fast. Typing a long pass simply takes far too long at the wrong times.
  - lrvick 1y ago
    I spend plenty of time on streets of lots of cities, with no cell phone at all, so I hardly see a slow-access phone as limiting either. I could get a camera maybe, or one of the tiny emergency 911 keychain phones that do not require a cell phone plan... but a smartphone? Why is that needed? I use planes, trains, taxis, rideshare, hotels all over the world and shop all over the world and never been denied anything for not having a phone.
  - ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y ago
    Yeah, I enable quicker forms of authentication if I know I am going to need to access my phone often (like when using maps, or the camera). Then I set it back when I notice it doesn't prompt for a password. I think it is a good practice from a security perspective as well. I am used to doing these things though. For example, I use NoScript in the browser with deny all as the default setting. To me, it is worth taking some extra steps to prevent unwanted alteration of my behavior.

jhrmnn 1y ago

One thing that'd be hard to give up is the camera. I have two small kids. I captured so many beautiful moments only thanks to a camera always being around.

lrvick 1y ago
I just have cheap digital cameras laying around the house anyone can use. If anything you may get -more- pictures this way.

magic_hamster 1y ago

Social media is horrible, and I rarely use them. However there are some truly necessary apps on my smartphone that I just can't deal without, namely an authenticator that lets me log into services, and Whatsapp which lots of businesses and some government offices use for formal support and contact.

jfritsch1984 1y ago

I‘ve got an iPhone and I use the focus mode and App Limits to great success. If I start Instagram during the day, for example, a gray screen appears and reminds me to think again. It works great against my reflexes. Also no push notifications from these apps. Probably not for total addicts, but it got me back into focus mode for the last 6 months. I built 3 apps while working a main job.

huksley 1y ago

Social media apps can have notifications turned off, so you check them when you voluntarily go and open them. Unfortunately for email the problem still persists, tons of newsletters and updates and other not so important emails and really urgent ones get drowned in that. What I typically do is I snooze everything for 2 hours and have a productive session without interruption.

redcannon218 1y ago

The claims about privacy are, at best, dubious. While it's true that there are less opportunities to track you through leaky / malicious apps, "dumbphones" remain, well, phones, with data retention laws in almost all countries in the world (and the subsequent leaks / hacks, see the recent Salt typhoon events for a good example) plus extra vulnerabilities due to poorly-developed Operating Systems.

veddox 1y ago
That depends on what threat scenario you're looking at. If your government wants to track you, they'll find a way, regardless of what phone you're using (or not). But the privacy gains of not installing a load of third-party apps from a dozen different data-selling businesses (or using an operating system built by the mother of all data-selling businesses) are very substantial.

card_zero 1y ago

I use a dumbphone, but it's not because I'm worried I might be having too much fun, or because I want to have any healthy relationships or pay attention to things around me. It's just that every damn business wants to install its app in my pocket, often for flimsy reasons. It seems proper to resist. For instance my local shopping mall used to have maps, on physical boards. Then it installed big touchscreens. Do they display the map, and update every day? No! The only thing they show when touched is a giant QR code to get shoppers to install the app that has the map on it (and presumably ads and tracking too).

debuggerson 1y ago

I know someone who doesn’t use food delivery apps, doesn’t shop online, and lives very minimally. For them, a dumbphone works just fine. But for most of us, life is already deeply tied to apps: banking, transport, messaging, work. A lot of things aren't even optional anymore — many services expect you to use an app. Once you go convenient, it’s really hard to go back. You don’t just lose access to entertainment — you lose infrastructure.

lrvick 1y ago
You can use webapps for all of those things. You do not need Android or iOS for anything. A appless browser on a laptop or linux tablet will do just fine.
- debuggerson 1y ago
  But when come to phone, webapp is much more troublesome to use, not friendly for phone user. But after all, it’s the lifestyle that you choose that decide it.
  - lrvick 1y ago
    You can save most webapps to your home screen and they then look/feel similar to native apps if you really want to go that route. Bonus: they also work on non android/iOS platforms

WindyMiller 1y ago

I was drawn to this idea but then I realised that the number of phone calls/texts I made/received was so low I would essentially be carrying the phone in case of emergencies. Or, more accurately, because I didn't feel comfortable being without a phone for any length of time. (Remember when people used to complain about all mobile phones, because they felt they shouldn't be contactable all the time? Kind of remarkable that the same device is now the 'disconnected' option!) Now I carry an Android phone with an epaper display and a physical keyboard, which feels like a really good middle ground to me. It's good at the things that are important to me (reading, writing, communication), can do whatever other essentials I need it to in a scrape, and is absolute dogshit at scrolling through nonsense. The device itself feels rather less polished than the Pixel I was using before, but since I'm using it much less that doesn't seem like a problem. My old pre-smartphone phones always felt kind of janky too!

lrvick 1y ago
In a home emergency I pick up one of many DECT wireless phones around the house In an emergency in public, I yell "Help!" and 20 phones come out. In a major emergency when cell phone lines are down I can tune to the frequency of my local police and yell at them all to come to me. They never deploy any useful encryption on those things. So far so good. Even when I totaled a vehicle. Always reliably other people around with emergency phones so I do not need one.

yyx 1y ago

One simple solution is to buy a cheap used phone. Every app is made for flagships now. You'll still be able to use the apps, but everything will lag.

veddox 1y ago

I've been thinking about moving to a dumb phone again for the past few months, but so far I've decided against it, for three reasons: 1. Signal/Whatsapp/Threema: biggest reason by far - while I message much less than many others, these platforms are just the way a lot of (group) communication works nowadays. It is possible to go without, but it causes so much hassle when organising things or trying to stay up to date with what's happening in a group, and would disrupt my international friendships. 2. Maps & public transport apps: are just super useful to have available, especially if you regularly travel in places you don't know (well). 3. Camera: This one I'm still a bit undecided on, but I think I would miss not having it at hand. However, I do try to actively give my phone as little space in my life as possible. I have no social networks on it (I don't have any left by now, anyway), and no other apps that involve scrolling. And I continue to think about how I can avoid distractions from it.

deleted 1y ago

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whitehexagon 1y ago

I found the data on attention span really interesting and quite shocking. I'm also driving a 'dumbphone' but disappointed with HMD's / Nokia's definition. It still has a fb app, yuk! and tries to do things with data connection (I had to get a sim with data disabled, not so easy these days). The few games on there trigger some kind of billing charge if you play them a few times. Oh and no developer SDK. What is nice is the peace and silence it has brought me. I was quite unsure at first, especially having been an App developer for many years. But now I am very happy to have escaped notification hell. I also dont want to live in a world where I have to carry a 'smart' tracking device around to be able to partake in society. When my bank insisted on an App I waved my dumb phone, and suddenly I was able to continue without. I am hoping it will be enough to avoid being forced into a digital-euro tracking currency. But too many people take the easy option, and so I am sure I fight a losing battle. But I wonder at what point carrying a smartphone will become a legal requirement? provided by the government? or appear in public libraries for us odd-balls that value privacy. Probably they just make the dumbphones smarter, or illegal, like cash seems to be heading.

card_zero 1y ago
I found the data on attention span uncited and meaningless, but yes, certainly shocking. I wonder who made that chart and how the times were measured and who participated. Still, shocking, so I guess it did its job.

hrudham 1y ago

Many dumbphones only support technologies (2G, 3G, etc.) that are actively being deprecated at the moment. If you are using a modern one, you still get rid of many useful things like maps, Signal and WhatsApp (the latter I've found is sometimes critical for interacting with some companies that have migrated their support there, like my ISP). Are there dumbphones that support just those two features? If not, then I don't feel like moving over to one is realistic. Rather, just don't install whatever application is distracting you, and try simply turning notifications off. I still can't believe how many people simply don't have the willpower to do this. On the battery life point, when you remove a lot of this cruft, you'd be surprised how much gain back as well, since you're also not staring at the thing with the screen on all the time. I'm on a 5 year old iPhone mini that I'm still regularly getting two days out of. Another pet peeve: graphs should have axes that start at zero, or clearly point out why they are zoomed in. It's to easy to mislead readers otherwise, and great for making something sensational.

kennu 1y ago

I don't really know what to do with a dumbphone, since I don't get any phone calls or text messages any more. Everything goes through apps, email or web nowadays.

Milpotel 1y ago

> the battery life of a dumbphone is LEGENDARY. You literally only need to charge it once every three days at most But the battery of my cheap debloated Xiaomi lasts 5 days...

TruffleLabs 1y ago

I believe phones can be addictive. I do want to point out => "The attention span myth - No, the average human attention span is not 1 second less than that of the goldfish." https://uxpsychology.substack.com/p/the-attention-span-myth https://uxpsychology.substack.com/p/the-attention-span-myth