So, after like 8 months of dumbphone only, I’ve given up.
It wasn’t one majorly annoying thing, but just a non-stop death by a thousand cuts. Modern life really requires at least possession of one of these stupid little rectangles, and if you don’t have one, you get slowly nibbled to death by the ducks of modernity.
So, rather than redouble my efforts to bend the world to dealing with me wanting to be a bit of a luddite weirdo, I’ve given up and just… bought an iPhone SE and paired it with an Apple Watch 8 I already had.
See, the thing I really didn’t consider is that I pretty much already had the ideal dumbphone: this AW8 is a cellular version.
It does phone calls, text messages, and has sufficient ties to modern services (music, podcasts, audiobooks, maps, etc.) that it is, by itself, a 60% solution. And just for perfect clarity: there’s a lot of things wrong with the watch that make it not an ideal device, with the biggest one being really not fantastic battery life.
For everything the watch doesn’t do, I also have the phone, but the phone isn’t strictly required, and I can simply leave it at home when I don’t want to deal with all the modern smartness and just rely on the watch.
For sure, it’s not a cheap solution since an iPhone and a cellular watch is a giant investment even if you go for the “cheapest” versions, and I’m paying for two cellular plans (though, with US Mobile it’s $96/year for each so, relatively speaking, still pretty cheap).
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What were some of the things that nibbled away at ya?
I think it’s really cool you tried it out for as long as you did.
Are you “all in” on smartphone now that you know it’s essential?
I still strongly dislike a lot of the dynamics around them.
They’re still privacy nightmares, they’re still running black-box software that’s not auditable and doing who the fuck knows what in the basebands, and they’re still covered in sensors running apps that are trying to scrape every byte of that data to profile you and sell that data to anyone who asks.
But, ultimately, I was spending too much time trying to stand on a principle that wasn’t really doing anything (I still use computers, and the websites of most of the apps I was using before, and still having a huge amount of data ingested since I didn’t live in a cabin in the woods) other than making my own life more complicated and causing shit like missing invites to things because my phone just didn’t get the SMS, or resorted the arrival order, or failed to download a MMS message or whatever whereas everyone on a modern phone was like, fine.
So I won’t say I’m all-in, or that I like them, or that I’ve even changed my mind that they’re little spy rectangles that are making us all stupid, but uh, too much in modern life is making the assumption you have one to completely unplug without losing an awful lot.
with US Mobile
been looking at them for awhile to cut our phone costs. how do you like 'em, and which ‘network’ do you use?
I’m using their T-Mobile rebrand, and it’s just as good as T-Mobile ever was, excepting you don’t get any 5G access.
Though, tbh, I don’t care, since I’m paying $5 a month for 500 minutes, 500 texts, and 500mb of data. 5G would be a total waste since, I mean, even the 4G stuff can eat all my data allocation in like 30 seconds anyways.
when gramma’s house got wired for internet last summer, we were able to dump the mobile hotspot she was using at home for internet (which was practically unusable because the signal there is basically non-existent the last few years) to get our bill “down” to “only” $130. 3 handhelds and an adapter thing you can connect normal phones to. a whole 8 or 10gb of pooled data included in that. vzn is really generous here.
it’d be $46 with these guys for the same lines and gigs ($36 total a month for the handhelds, and $120 a year for the adapter), but we might have to get new gear all around except for mine (volte flipper bought at retail, unlocked and supposed to work with all three carriers). i like that new feature where we can try the carriers out and easily switch a line (or all) from one to another if one isn’t working where we need it to.
what does the cid come up as when calling a landline with name&number cid? just ‘wireless’ and number or somesuch like some cell phones, the billing name (like others–what we don’t want. we use a line as a business line), or can you customize the names that show up with the number?
what does the cid come up as when calling a landline with name&number cid? just ‘wireless’ and number or somesuch like some cell phones, the billing name (like others–what we don’t want. we use a line as a business line), or can you customize the names that show up with the number?
I have no idea, tbh.
I went to try to test, but it turns out I don’t know ANYONE with a landline phone anymore, so uh, I can’t.
I posted here back in August about a 30 day dumbphone challenge. I’m still using that flip phone, though I’ve un-dumbed it since then. Still, it’s just inconvenient enough that I don’t make habit of endlessly scrolling.
It seems to me you are suffering from cognitive dissonance. You want to not use a smart phone and you deem that the “correct” way. You get frustrated with yourself because you can’t live the way you think is right.
Don’t beat yourself up, it’s hard enough out here already. Getting by without a smart phone is hard and you aren’t to blame for that. If at any point you feel addicted, identify you values and make a decision whether or not to put it away. Don’t let your subconscious control what you consciously want.
Or I could have read this all wrong, I’m just some douche on the internet.
Yeah, I really wanted to get rid of the smartphone because I waste so much time on it. I made a list of all the things I use it for and possible alternatives, and it was mostly doable, but I just can’t give up Discord. Got friends and family without cell service, especially the younger ones, and Discord is how they text.
Part of me is relieved because tracking my gym progress with pen and paper sounded like a pain. I’m always missing at least one item from my gym bag on a given day :P adding two more to rely on is a bad idea.
But still, the luddite life is so alluring…maybe someday I’ll be free of this magic rectangle that makes me sad.
Yeah that’s basically the same conclusion I reached: it’s perfectly cromulent until you run into something you need that it won’t do, and then there’s absolutely no way to make it work, period.
A lot of the final decision was based primarily around the fact that I just was not invovled in what friends and family members were doing, because I had become a pain in the ass to contact and so people just… didn’t.
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I’ve been in the same boat, so i got myself a cheap phone (actually a hand-me-down from my mom in the form of a Redmi 6A lol), flashed lineageos and didn’t install gapps. Basically as dumb as a smartphone gets. Then you get fdroid and aurora store and you’re good to go. However, i use that phone only when i need to focus, so about 5-6 hours a day, so unfortunately i still have a smartphone. So maybe it would be worth it for you to look into that sorta thing, definitely has helped me regain control.
When I’m out and about, I use a de-Googled JellyStar. A very small phone that I mainly use just for messages and calls. It’s not a dumbphone, it’s a small smartphone that is quite hard to view or comment on social media with. Doesn’t encourage anything but basic use.
I loved my Jelly Star until the screen on it failed. Trying to get it fixed under warranty seemed practically impossible so eventually I just gave up and went back to my old phone.
Sorry to hear about that. Mine so far OK but only had it 6 months.
omg i never heard of these. smaller than my flip is closed… over a half inch shorter, quarter inch narrower, and just about the same thickness. will have to remember they exist when i ‘have to’ switch to a “smart” one.
It’s near impossible to live without anymore
All of our bills are paid online, our kids’ teachers communicate with us through apps, the school has its own app for communicating events and closures
Even just ordering fast food is done through apps. It’s still an option to order in person, but won’t be able to get special deals or earn points without their app.
My TV even works best with an app instead of just a regular remote
It’s never lost on me when there is an annoyingly loud commercial but I can’t mute the TV because the app is updating and restarting
Never thought I would one day be telling people to “hold on my remote control is updating and restarting”
What a time to be alive
hold on my remote control is updating and restarting
just throw a slipper at it. that’s what mom would do to me (her ‘remote’) when i was a kid.
