@mimsical

There is a group here (I don't know what it is called on Redit) called dumbphones. Plenty of people there who have done it or tried to do it. But many don't want to give up some apps that are primarily known for smart phone use.

@mimsical I’ve done it in spurts. But always returned. The reliance on medical and banking institutions on apps and communication technology make it impractical to break away for me personally.

I’m in the process of educating a relative how to deal with life online. She is now dealing with long term memory care for a spouse, and who has always relied on analog methods of communication and transactions. She’s always distrusted tech. Now she has to learn to live with it and is hating it.

@mimsical 1/2 Turning off notifications on your phone helps, as someone else noted.

Before I quit Twitter, Facebook, etc altogether, and was a bit addicted to them, I deleted the apps from my phone and blocked the sites in my phone's browser. Making it harder to use those services makes it easier to avoid them.

I also used to change my passwords and then log out without saving the password (they were random, and impossible to remember). That way I could stay away for weeks/months at a time.

@mimsical I want to rid myself of a smart phone as well, but currently there are a few things holding me back:

* I want to be able to message "sorry, I'm 15min late" and please no SMS, Signal is the way to go.
* Navigation
* Music streaming
* Payments

IMHO a standalone eSIM smart watch could very much suit these use cases, if it can do speech recognition & speech output. Unfortunately there's no product really fitting that bill.

There are of course other features I'd like to see such as

* 2FA codes
* Environment warning
* Fitness tracker

Non-goals are anything I actually need to interact with a lot, social media, mails, larger chats, …

@mimsical The key things I have found are

1) The phone shouldn't demand my attention unless it's on behalf of another human or because I set a timer or alarm.
2) The things I do on the phone should be transactional and not encourage me to stay beyond getting the task done.

No notifications. No social media. When you pick up your phone and your options are things like online banking, your todo list, and your budgeting app it all feels like work.

@mimsical My son decided that smartphones and social media were bad for his mental health (smart man). He's still searching for the phone that does just enough to take advantage of modern tech without leading to compulsive doomscrolling.

I'm just trying to get back to reading books on paper again. The internet has wrecked my attention span.

@mimsical I use wired headphones (IEMs) and listen to high fidelity audio (96-192khz).

Now that I'm used to how good it sounds I don't use streaming apps. The quality from the physical wire is very refreshing, I also have a music player that is text only, so I can type the name of the song and it plays, no user interface.

It is still digital, but I find it calming and grounding.

@mimsical Lately I've been listening to music + podcasts on an MP3 player (they still exist!) and, when possible, reading articles on an ebook reader.

It means I have to create my own music collection, and put together articles that I want to read, and then put them on their respective devices.

I like the idea of intentionally choosing what content I am going to consume, instead of just turning on the magic rectangle of distraction and seeing something right away.