Recently, I decided to perform an experiment. For two weeks, I disabled the “smart” on my smartphone and lived life as I did prior to 2012 – with just a dumb phone.
Why Did I Do This?
Both research and my own personal experience suggest that smartphones aren’t all that great for mental health. They shorten our attention spans, create anxiety, and quite possibly reduce our cognitive abilities. Having reached a milestone age, cognitive decline is a very scary prospect. So, I wanted to see if it was possible to turn back the clock to a 2010s tech lifestyle.
What Did I Do?
I use a 2021 iPhone SE. I went into the settings menu and disabled both WiFi and cellular data. I then deleted every app that was “useless” in this configuration. Banking apps, news, weather, all gone. I went from 3 pages of apps to one:
As you can see there are still quite a few things left. I can take pictures and videos, record audio, play music, make calculations, and even look up words in the dictionary. Apple Music and YouTube support pre-downloading of content which will still play when offline. Google and Microsoft Authenticator are necessary for work and some websites, but can function in an offline mode as token generators.
What Did I Miss?
Frankly, nothing. I had to change some habits. Instead of a grocery list app, I went back to keeping paper notes on the refrigerator. Rather than reading news, I either listened to it on the radio, or read it when I was at my computer which is much more comfortable due to the larger screen. My pre-downloaded music would play in the car and I never had any dropouts. I didn’t miss the GPS because I know how to get around and didn’t do any traveling beyond well-known areas.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was email. Reading it on the computer meant only checking email twice a day. Nothing really happened during that period of time that I missed out on. I was surprised at just how few (non-junk) messages I get every day.
That being said, I still experienced my own compulsive behaviors. I was still pulling my phone out in the bathroom well into the second week, despite the fact that I had no mail to check or news to read. Have I really become so addicted that I can’t tolerate 30 seconds of boredom?
Rude Surprises
A few things didn’t work out as planned. It is surprisingly hard to find grocery list pads in stores. I wound up using scrap paper or post-it-note pads.
It was difficult to disengage from the Apple messaging ecosystem. My friends immediately noticed I was using SMS, since the messages came in green. However, their replies would go to my computer instead of my phone. This was solved by signing out of iMessage on both my computer and phone.
I am still having issues with receiving group texts. This caused me to not receive a message that a relative had passed away. While this is bad, I really should have been notified of such a major event through more direct means.
Benefits
The biggest benefit I saw was increased productivity at home. I got several projects done that had been languishing for a while. My daily screen time dropped from 1 hour, 37 minutes down to 34 minutes. That’s an hour a day I’m not wasting staring into a tiny little screen. The sense of accomplishment I got from finishing these projects outweighs whatever dopamine micro-dose those news articles/videos/comment posts would have given me.
I also gained an increased awareness of the world around me. It’s a beautiful time of year and I’ve enjoyed watching birds fly, trees blow in the breeze, and even had some interesting people-watching.
My anxiety level was lower. In addition to reading news in the bathroom I had also developed a habit of checking my bank and credit card balances multiple times a day. I had no reason to worry about that, so why did I?
Lastly, the phone itself is getting awesome battery life now. Before, it would be down to 5 or 10% by bedtime. Now it’s at 65%. Multiply that by a billion phones and that’s quite a lot of energy saved!
Conclusions
What is the real value proposition of smart phones? They make daily tasks slightly more convenient. Sure, it’s nice to be able to add things to the grocery list when you’re away from home (or on the other side of the room). And, it’s nice for your spouse to see the update on her phone.
But, in exchange, they bring anxiety. Do you have enough battery life? Do you have enough money? I’m so mad about this thing I just read in the news. The grocery list didn’t sync and I didn’t know we needed more cheese.
Is it worth it? Honestly, I don’t think so. These features would be more valuable if I were traveling, or if I didn’t own a computer. But I’m not and I do, so I don’t think so.
But there’s a deeper concern – any time I am on the internet, I am being tracked. Not just my consumption habits, but also my location, and people I interact with. Who is collecting all of this data and what are they doing with it? And whenever I look for something, how much am I being influenced by algorithms that seek to steer my behaviors?
Obviously these are things we have to think about when using a computer on the internet as well, but mobile usage makes it an order of magnitude more creepy. Yes, my cell carrier has my location but they can only give it up with a warrant. Mobile apps have no such protections.
So, could I live the dumb-phone lifestyle in 2025? Sure. Will I? Probably not. The phone is paid for and I am on the lowest plan I can get. There is no real economic advantage to switching to a flip phone or lite phone. It would be nice to occasionally use data features. But I will likely be very judicious about what apps I re-install and try to keep tabs on myself to make sure I don’t slip into my old ADHD ways.
I also realize that 99% of the population would never entertain such a crazy idea. But if you have found this post, you may be pondering it. I say try it for a couple of weeks and see what you think!