Dumb phones

Yeah, people (including myself) just see it it as absurd that I have a dumb phone and a simless smartphone. It’s like maximum inconvenience for barely any change. Which I kind of understand.

I gave this a try last year but the things that made me give up on the experience were homebanking, which for 2 of my banks is exclusively via app, needing to use whatsapp for communication with my parents who live abroad and needing to send pictures frequently for work. A lot of smartphone features are actual basic necessities these days

A lot of smartphone features are actual basic necessities these days

Only if you've made the mistake of getting used to them. I've never had a mobile phone and no-one tries to communicate with me in ways that I don't do. There are so many communication methods that you really don't need those offered by mobile phone software. The banking issue is obviously a serious one. I'm fortunate in still having a local bank branch. I'll probably always have one somewhere in London, but I fully expect to have to travel further at some point.

I think the problem is that the whole ecosystem is geared towards gaming your psychology to the point you endlessly scroll/watch/make them money.

Even after the iPhone was launched in 2007 life didn't significantly change. It was the app store ecosystem growth post 2012 or so that changed our lives forever.

I notice I am never bored anymore. I default to checking the news or social media on my phone, or in the evenings putting on Netflix etc. I want to change this aspect of my life but I don't think technology is inherently bad. I think it is just the ideological system we decided to adopt, which is buy more, consume more, scroll more, watch more, endless entertainment.

What if there was a platform that incentivised healthy wholesome behaviour instead of zombie consumerism and politics fear scrolling? One that gets you out of the house, gets you seeing people in person and doing stuff, making friends etc?

LFGSS forum is an example of this. It gets us excited about cycling, brings us together etc

What if there was a platform that incentivised healthy wholesome behaviour instead of zombie consumerism and politics fear scrolling? One that gets you out of the house, gets you seeing people in person and doing stuff, making friends etc?

strava?

Well, the Internet has long been turned against its users, perhaps starting with Google, or maybe that was only the first company to do that to become very big. People imagine they sign up for 'free' services, only to then sign long 'contracts' unread that give these companies carte blanche to abuse the data they give, right down to facial recognition and voice data nowadays. As this is all quite valuable, naturally these companies have an interest in making people work more and more; essentially, if you're on an anti-social media site or use WhatsApp, you're an unpaid employee of these companies and constantly generate value for them, trivial in an individual message, but profitable in the vast data volumes that can be processed today, which is also where all this 'AI' nonsense comes from, as it enables companies to process data in new and different ways and generate even more value from it.

LFGSS is a little oasis on the Internet because David doesn't do any of that.

I miss having drinks happening every day of the week, though. :)

What if there was a platform that incentivised healthy wholesome behaviour instead of zombie consumerism and politics fear scrolling?

There are places for this if you use the internet as a tool. It can offer you pretty much anything. You can spend 24 hours looking at mackerel if you want. You have to decide what you want to do and go from there rather than letting it lead you. The social media filler is always there, but you can avoid it or minimise it.

Jonathan Haidt says the same about the app store in his book, The Anxious Generation.

I totally agree with his main point that children shouldn't have anything more than a dumb phone until age appropriate.

Not a dumb phone but a dumbed down smart phone. Monochrome screen means you'll probably scroll instagram reels less but still does spotify and whatsapp etc:

https://www.minimalcompany.com/

That's really cool. I think I spend 90% of my phone time reading text though, so probably wouldn't help with the addiction much.

Wonder how much import fees would be.

Yeah, it's not going to fix twitter scrolling unless the UX is annoying enough that you stop out of frustration.

You can also turn most phones into grayscale mode in accessibility options which certainly helps with the IG scrolling and would be a much cheaper test before buying an e-ink/e-paper phone

I've looked into crap smart phones a few times now and never ended up switching but instead have got an app blocker installed to just limit a bunch of apps and websites. Some of them I'll look at once a day when brushing my teeth, it locks out after 10 minutes but I've found I just close the app before that point now myself as I'm not as attached. Other things it's got to a point where I've not even been on once and should just delete my profile but can't be bothered to even log in to do it. I did the greyscale thing on my iPhone for a bit but found it didn't really do anything.

Unfortunately for me I have made the mistake of getting used to the need for a lot of stuff on my phone as Oliver says above. Pretty much every social outlet I have will be organised through WhatsApp now, meeting for drinks, plans for watching the football, my DnD group, my band for practices and sharing recordings and stuff so I feel pretty stuck with needing that. Then there's gig tickets often being through apps like Dice and stuff now as well and then listening to music and podcasts and that as well. Banking is also one that I find useful to have when needed and then there's authenticator stuff and desk booking for work.

I've got an idea in my head of stuff that I'd want and stuff that I'd easily just cut out, if the right phone offered it, so I should probably just uninstall all the apps that phone would cut out and I'd be fine.

This seems to be a much more realistic middle ground from everything else that I’ve seen.

To the point I might actually take a punt on it.

I've tried quite a lot of things short of changing to a dumb phone but I always just end up working around them eventually (eg deleting apps so I use the web version, deleting things from the home screen so I just go to the app library, instinctively dismissing the screen time lock etc).

My screen time isn't thaaat bad (1.5-2hrs per day) and I only really use whatsapp and the web browser, but I'd still like it to be less.

TBH by far the best thing I've found is having a book that I'm in to to hand which I can pick up instead of my phone during those times where you have a few minutes to spare. During those times it goes down to less than an hour today, which is pretty much all Whatsapp, which I don't consider problematic.

most stuff can be done later, when at a computer.

Navigation / route planning and the camera are the biggest things for me. That and 2FA.

Social media is basically dead to me but I use the browser a lot because I'm a curious cat.

Pretty much every social outlet I have will be organised through WhatsApp now, meeting for drinks, plans for watching the football, my DnD group, my band for practices and sharing recordings and stuff so I feel pretty stuck with needing that.

Put simply, if you want to change, you'll find out who your real friends are. :)