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Since giving up my cell phone entirely over 5 years ago, my productivity, memory, and overall happiness are at the highest levels they have ever been, in my lat
by lrvick 1y ago
Since giving up my cell phone entirely over 5 years ago, my productivity, memory, and overall happiness are at the highest levels they have ever been, in my late 30s. I no longer apologize to anyone for this lifestyle choice anymore since the benefits are something everyone deserves, but almost all opt out of today for made up reasons.
I take photos with a pocket mirrorless, and take notes with a notebook. I tell time with a self winding mechanical watch. I pay for things at stores with cash instead of tap to pay. Like a cave man, I know.
I am reachable by internet when I am at my desk, and by landline when I am at home. In an actual emergency dial 911, not me. Otherwise it can probably wait until I am at my desktop or a laptop.
I was already sold on raising kids without smartphones on intuition and lived experience, but study after study point at us having access to all humans, all knowledge, and all entertainment at all times as leading to generally bad mental health and cognitive function outcomes. Our brains were simply not evolved for it.
Whenever I see parents scrolling, and handing a kid a phone as well to pacify them, I wish I could report them for child abuse. I feel like I am watching them be given whiskey or cigarettes, except it is socially acceptable and no one cares.
- VladVladikoff 1y agoThis is inspiring. I definitely need to look into getting a landline and reducing my cellphone dependence. We’ve been talking about it lately for our daughter to be able to talk to her friends outside of school. Recently another parent had suggested face time calls which we are strongly against (not so much against video calls but rather against child tablet usage).
- lrvick 1y agoI started by deleting an app a month until my phone was so boring I kept forgetting it at home, and ultimately abandoned it entirely. It took a couple years to recalibrate my dopamine reward system gradually until I could enjoy just existing in my own thoughts and brain again while away from the internet, learn to navigate for myself, etc. For "landlines" I just ported my families cell phone numbers (with their total consent and support) to a voip service, then got VOIP ATA boxes which allows plugging traditional landline phones, including an actual payphone for fun, via ethernet or wifi. Costs a couple dollars a month.
- 31337Logic 1y agoPro Tip: Other parents sometimes need to be told NO, especially when it comes to matters of tech. I believe their heart is in the right place but most of them don't know the first thing about the dangers of social media, gps tracking, cellphone addiction, frequent video calls, etc. If enough pressure is applied, then it will be the norm for your local community of kids to spend time in real life together vs. 100% online in a digital scaremongered world. Can there be a balance? Sure. But that balance usually comes only after saying NO to unnecessary tech. NO, kids in elementary school don't need a phone (they really don't). NO, we don't need to digitally track our child's movements down to the meter (we really don't). But don't take my word for it. In 2025, we now havea sea of well documented research that proves the extremely high cost we all pay (as a society) for damaging our kids this way.
- dpark 1y ago> 100% online in a digital scaremongered world The irony of posting scaremongering about video calls being dangerous on a digital forum while claiming to be offline to avoid scaremongering. > If enough pressure is applied You cannot force the rest if your community to align with your personal viewpoints. There is no amount of “pressure” that is going to bend society to your will.
- lrvick 1y agoSmoking is dropping like a brick as a result of science, education, and social pressure. Just takes a while.
- dpark 1y agoI was perhaps ambiguous. I am not saying societal change is not possible. I’m saying you, personally, will not change your local community as you imagine by simply telling other parents no. Nowhere in your comment is there any indication you are running some sort of community initiative or anything else that might lead to actual change. Campaigning for a spot on the school board to advocate for banning cell phones in schools might be a useful strategy, for example. Telling parents who ask about FaceTime between friends that tablets are evil seems as effective as telling random smokers on the street that it’s going to kill them.
- apexalpha 1y agoSo you not have extended family or friends in your daily social setting? Like this sounds awesome but being offline for 23 hours in the day is unmanageable here, unless you live a very solitary life.
- blueflow 1y ago> Like this sounds awesome but being offline for 23 hours in the day is unmanageable here, unless you live a very solitary life Except when you are offline together.
- apexalpha 1y agoYes, but unfortunately my kids’ daycare, school, other parents, my job don’t want to.
- lrvick 1y agoIf you wanted to be vegan as a personal choice and everyone in your life wanted you to eat meat anyway, who cares? No one gets to decide your lifestyle but you. Make them adapt. You can get landlines (via a VOIP conversion box or otherwise), and beyond that what do you really need if you are honest?
- dpark 1y agoThis is just circular arguing. > it’s not manageable to be offline all the time here > it is if you’re all offline together > but everyone doesn’t want to be offline with me > just be offline by yourself; what’s the big deal? <— you The big deal is all the stuff called out above. My kids school, child care, my work, pizza delivery, everyone has built up infrastructure that assumes virtually always online. If it works for you to just not be online anymore, cool. But it’s not trivial for many people to make this change.
- lrvick 1y agoI have an active social life, spent years as a sysadmin, co-run two tech companies, have a family, all without a phone. This is not some crazy sci-fi lifestyle experiment I am running for the first time. I just live mostly like all industrialized humans did before 2009.
- crims0n 1y agoI love the sentiment, but some of us need to be reachable for work. I wonder if PagerDuty could be rigged up to work with actual pagers?
- conception 1y agoPagers take SMS. The problem is finding modern pager service.
- hellcow 1y agoPagerDuty can send you an SMS or call you, so wouldn't that work with a dumb-phone?
- cenamus 1y agoAndroid profiles with just the the pager stuff installed/enabled would probably work? And a long/annoying password for the "main" profile, with banking and all the other stuff maybe
- Emma_Goldman 1y agoI use the app screenzen. It rations distracting apps and retrains you to use your phone as a functional device again. I now only use my phone for messaging, emails, maps and spotify, but can still access Chrome when I need. A perfect balance.
- lrvick 1y agoI co-run two tech companies and am reachable during office hours which are mostly spent at my desk, and when I am not working I am not reachable by work, and I trust my team. If you modify your preferred lifestyle in any way for work during personal time, you are still working. If a company wants you to be reachable 24/7 then they need to give you a pager and a salary based on a 168 hour work week, not a 40 hour work week. Just because everyone else lets themselves be exploited does not mean you need to. Make the ~40 hours count and work circles around everyone else, then disconnect.
- Gooblebrai 1y ago> I pay for things at stores with cash instead of tap to pay Good luck living in London with cash. I guess a plastic credit cards is allowed
- rpdillon 1y agoThe article is already fairly sensationalist in its conclusions and language, but avoiding tap-to-pay because you don't have a phone is a non-sequitur; debit and credit cards support tap to pay just fine. Similarly with folks saying they don't carry a phone so they ask others for the time. One option is to wear a watch.
- lrvick 1y agoWhen you use tap to pay, you are sending information about your purchases and location to dozens of ad tech companies, and are still participating in the very surveillance capitalism that makes everyone stupider for money. I also pay with cash for privacy, and to use my privilege to constantly demand it as an option so the unbanked who cannot advocate for themselves can still participate in society.
- tharne 1y ago> I also pay with cash for privacy, and to use my privilege to constantly demand it as an option so the unbanked who cannot advocate for themselves can still participate in society. Good for you! I so wish more people would think and act this way. Most people don't realize that in a world without cash, government and large businesses can shutdown your entire with the push of a button without any sort of due process.
- rpdillon 1y agoAbsolutely agree. It just has nothing to do with self-reported memory and cognitive decline, which is the subject of the article.
- lrvick 1y ago
- kibwen 1y agoLast Monday in a fit of exasperation I turned my phone into airplane mode. And that's where I left it, for an entire week. I swear this was the most productive week of work I've ever had in my professional career. It's astonishing. On the weekend I wanted to call my mom and yet I dreaded taking it off airplane mode. I'm going to try doing this for the foreseeable future.
- lrvick 1y agoYou can do wifi calling in airplane mode. Left ours in this mode by default for months at first and then realized we could just cancel the cell phone plan entirely to save money. Wifi is everywhere when you need it.
- Thorrez 1y agoWhat about using your phone for navigation?
- autoexec 1y agoYou can buy standalone GPS systems or use the one built into your car. Maps also exist
- doublerebel 1y agoIt’s easy to save map regions that work offline. GPS is passive and doesn’t need an internet connection to function.
- kibwen 1y agoYes, it's worth noting that your GPS is still active even in airplane mode.
- lrvick 1y agoI personally just look up directions online before I leave and take a few notes. Usually commits it to memory. Regularly relying on a GPS in general provably makes your brain weaker: https://newatlas.com/gps-spatial-direction-ucl/48529/ https://newatlas.com/gps-spatial-direction-ucl/48529/
- rpdillon 1y ago> Whenever I see parents scrolling, and handing a kid a phone as well to pacify them, I wish I could report them for child abuse. Consider that you might not have everything figured out for everyone. I'm glad you found something that works, but the will to impose your way on others isn't benevolent.
- lrvick 1y agoMany parents used to drink while pregnant and put whiskey in the baby bottle to make kid shut up. We should make decisions based on research, not by emulating other badly informed parents, even if they are the majority.
- rpdillon 1y agoThe study does not point to a cause. The comment I'm responding to is drawing conclusions based on a sensationalist blog post and then wishing they could report other parents for abuse. I think the study is well done, but we can't scientifically draw the conclusions from it that the author (and folks in this thread) are drawing.
- lrvick 1y agoThis is just one study, that echos dozens and dozens of other studies all pointing at the same things: being reachable and able to reach everything and everyone everywhere all at once is making us all sadder and less productive, and kids are getting the worst of it having been handed this tech from their parents shortly after birth.
- 31337Logic 1y agoYour reply was next to meaningless as it doesn't offer anything above a "well, that's just how YOU feel about it!". Yes, that's true. That /is/ how the OP feels about it. But at least they were able to articulate their point and get a message across, along with an implied (albeit weak) "call to action", not meant to be taken literally. Although I'm sure, if polled, the majority of folks in this thread would agree with the OP sentiment. I know I do.
- d_tr 1y agoGet a flip phone. Being reachable and able to reach is good, and you'll still get all the other benefits.
- lrvick 1y agoAny device connected to cell towers is constantly having its location tracked via triangulation, which is sold to endless surveillance capitalism organizations and governments to monitor where we shop, and where we protest, to optimally manipulate us. I am specifically opting out of cellular networks for this reason, though open hardware/software wifi and meshtastic solutions I am always open to.