from tim@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world on 14 Sep 13:45
https://feddit.org/post/18821203
I’ve been using a flip phone as my daily driver for a while now. The smartphone is still around, but it mostly sits in a drawer until bureaucracy or banking apps force me to use it.
For me, the benefits are clear: less distraction, more focus, better sleep. But I know for many people it’s not so easy. Essential apps, social pressure, work requirements… these are real blockers.
I’d like to start a discussion (almost like an informal poll):
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If you thought about switching, what’s the single biggest thing that holds you back?
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Is it banking? Messaging? Maps? Something else?
I’m genuinely curious because if we can identify the main pain points, maybe it’s possible to work on solutions or even start a small project around it.
So: what would need to change for you to actually give a flip phone a try?
threaded - newest
Not having a private OS and messaging.
The best option as of now is the Punkt phone
There really isn’t anything I couldn’t replace my phone with a tablet that stays in the house for, and it has been a growing thought to switch back to a dumb phone.
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2FA app. 2FA via SMS is incredibly insecure.
Map and translation apps a close second.
Please tell my bank this ;-;
Yes, please tell my bank and doctors’ office. Thank you.
I just did. If you get any text messages about your upcoming penis surgery tomorrow, know it’s legit! (Are they removing one, or adding one? Doesn’t matter, I’m sure they’ll figure it out…)
lmao! i love it!
Yeah, I can’t speak a lick of Spanish although I’m starting to understand it a little. Translation apps are a life saver.
edit: oh, wait: VAMOS A LA CANTINA!
.
There is nothing about those that can’t run on KaiOS, which comes with Google maps and runs on most dumb phones on the market today.
There’s a terminology issue here, feature phones run apps, flip phones and true dumb phones shouldn’t run apps or have any data connections. But it seems more common now to draw the line at Smartphone and anything else is “dumb” even if it’s basically just a 2008 smartphone.
The line between smartphone and dumbphone has always been very blurry.
Stuff I use the phone for in rough order of importance:
I could drop lemmy from mobile because it’s just a time waster and news source.
Wikipedia is important because too often people are interminably arguing something that can be settled with a 30 second search. Like, you don’t need to spend 5 minutes arguing about the population of NJ just look it up.
Games are nice. I don’t want to go back to carrying around a second device for games like it’s 2001. I could bring a steam deck everywhere but that doesn’t fit in my pocket.
I don’t have any notifications turned on except like direct messages, so I don’t find it much of a distraction.
i have only ever had basic phones, dating back to my first nokia ~ 25 years ago. i don’t have the need or desire to have an android or iphone. one time. just once, ever–i enabled cellular data on my phone so i could look something up–the current weather forecast (in the kai weather ‘app’) because it started to look like i might get stranded out in a bad storm and i forgot to check the forecast before i left.
I personally dont think you need to switch to a dumb phone to get those benefits, smartphones themselves arent what’s causing issues its what you’re using. You want less distraction just stop using those apps or turn off push notifications.
I can very much agree with this. Like getting rid of Instagram and Tiktok has done a lot to help time not disappear in the same way.
Þere are oþer reasons to want a dumber phone. I miss charging my phone once a week, vs 1-2 times per day. I have a bendy-screen flip phone now, but before þese became available, it was hard to get a reasonably sized phone; þe trend was (and still is) phablets. I miss having þe expectation þat my phone would last for years, and not need upgrading because þe screen broke, or because þe OS stopped being updated, or because OS upgrades got more and more bloated and made þe phone slower and unusable over time. I miss þe time before an upgrade would completely fuck established muscle memory patterns because some dumb-shit decided to completely rearrange gestures - requiring an internet search to uncover þe byzantine, cryptic configuration combination to restore þe old behavior.
It's much more þan distractions.
OTOH, I need Jami to communicate wiþ my peer group, because SMS is insecure and incredibly basic. Navigation in your hand is incredibly useful, even þough it's been shown to ruin users' geospatial skills. And smarter address books are better þan old dumb-phone name+phone number address books.
But if I could get a decent, small e-ink phone, wiþ good battery, Jami, an address book, and hell, just a simple browseable map (even w/o navigation), I'd be golden. Jami is þe sticking point, because it introduces a dependency on Android, and þat's where þe fuckery starts.
I þþþþ cannot þþþþ understand þþþþ your þþþþ accent þþþþþþþþ
This guy keeps posting comments with that character and most of his comments are contrarian.
Attention-whoring to the maxxxx
Yeah, alongside that. Phones also have focus mode, digital wellbeing to limit usage of distracting apps. You can even turn on super power saving mode to limit phone use further and use it for basic functions like phones, messages, web browsing, etc.
I really hate when people are like “just stop” like everyone has impeccable self control and executive function.
Agreed. Also, there are important applications that I wouldn’t do without. Like Google Maps, my Garmin watch app, My security camera app.
What self control? Just delete the app and find a different addiction. Right now I’m on Lemmy 😜
The RIF/Apollo to Voyager pipeline is real
I wholeheartedly agree with this perspective.
I started on a privacy journey because I didn’t like that I’m being tracked (by basically everybody) and feel that the technology that I pay for should be service to me, not me as a service to it (and its related parties).
Anyways, along the way I did a few things. Namely, I turned off mail notifications (this was an inadvertent feature since my mail service couldn’t send notifications without google services that I removed). I also removed my sim and use data only via a hotspot, to which I don’t always have on. These sound like crazy things, and admittedly they aren’t for everyone, but the resulting mental shifts are exactly to this point.
Just because I have a device that let’s me be available to anybody in any place at any time, doesn’t mean I should be, or even need to be, available unless I want to be.
Now I protect my time, and the mental clarity that comes with it. I never was a doom scroller, but even now that concept is even more reduced. The phone is my tool, and I use when needed.
Right, absolutely. I use almost no apps for anything, I just use my phone’s browser for the web sites I want, and have a specific few non-privacy-invasive apps for other things (Voyager for here, Signal for messaging, password manager, etc) and have zero reason I would ever want to give up that functionality to do what, make CALLS? I don’t do that shit. Text message? Nah.
Literally just having a hotspot built in is keeping me on android. The lappy goes where I go, and that means as long as I have internet access I’m as connected as I could ever want to be.
Basically everyone has wifi, usually available after. I might just go out and get an unlocked dumbphone this week honestly.
Edit: yes I know about the mp02, its on the wishlist. I haven’t had a job in over a year so I won’t be getting it yet.
Who even makes phone calls today? Not me. I need a device that does everything but phone calls more than I need a device that only does voice.
There are devices like that. For example the iPod touch.
I still need internet service and the iPod touch was discontinued years ago.
Sony still makes an Android equivalent.
I know someone that has been trying out all of the mp3 players and has yet to find something that works as well as an iPod classic.
But then why would I need one? It’s all on my phone.
I’ve seen a few devices go by recently trying to capture that use case. Some have looked promising but I still have a Zune.
Construction workers, for sure. I miss PTT from NEXTEL (Motorola radio built into the phone) that shit was awesome.
My parents and all their friends used to use PTT with their Nextel phones. It was a super handy feature. I wonder why it fell out of style. Seemed more convenient and less tedious than a phone call for short communications.
Money, I think. Motorola radio communication isn’t very cheap.
There are both open source and commercial apps that do PTT over internet. It turns phones into radio, it even has the capability to have central radio operation rooms for companies and such. It’s all automated.
I can’t get these people to use Signal instead of SMS.
But nothing internet dependent will turn a phone into a radio. We are in places where even 4G doesn’t reach sometimes and if there was a Motorola repeater onsite it’d be great. I’ve got our company trying it out and the SL300 has been a game changer for our communication on site.
I don’t use the phone part of my smartphone much, so thie idea of a dumbphone has no real appeal for me.
My first cell phone was a flip phone, and I’m not gonna lie, I’ve considered revisiting my teenage days again and getting one. But I feel like, right now, my smartphone use is very light.
I avoid Meta apps, I don’t play mobile games, my biggest vice was reddit which has now become a shithole of bots and censorship so I don’t go on there anymore. I read the news on here, chat a little on Discord, check my birdfeeder and that’s pretty much it besides occasional use of google maps as needed.
On top of that, this phone is from 2018 so its battery life these days is not great. I think that helps too.
Maybe for those hesitating to get a dumb phone, perhaps start with an older smartphone to whittle your time down?
As someone who always had some kind of PDA (CASIO digital diary, Palm, Compaq iPaq) and switched onto the smartphone bandwagon pretty early (SonyEricsson P800/P910i, Qtek 9000, various Androids and various iPhones) … I don’t think I could enjoy the experience with a dumb phone. I love modern technology too much.
I once had a colleague that religiously only used a Nokia 3210 (the newer 3G/4G model). Which meant 160 character messages only. No emojis, no photos (as MMS were expensive). He was also the kind of person to use paper maps when driving - incl. stopping to look for alternative routes if some road was blocked or jammed. That’s definitely not for me.
The only way this could work for me would be to have some small PDA that can connect to the phone to use the Internet. And I appreciate that both devices have been merged into smartphones at some point.
Maps is a big one
I’m doing the flip phone thing with an ipad at home. I do miss streaming music and maps.
It’s weird reading the responses. Our society has pushed smartphones down our throats that people can’t imagine living without one. They name things they “need” when in reality it’s all convenience in some form or another. All the while the true purpose of these devices is to listen, serve ads and feed on our insecurities, fears and anger.
“our society has pushed smart phones down our throats”
smartphones evolved from older methods of just getting through the day. taking notes, listening to music, calandars, date books, libraries, files, methods of communication.
you make the assumption that everyone is a slave to their device just because it’s a smart device.
some of us were alive before smart phones existed. and we’d prefer not to go back in tech. and would instead prefer the devices we have now.
I second this.
No one forced me. Even when work tried to force me to use smartphone 2FA it was easy enough to say "I'm not putting any f-ing micrsoft crap on my phone", they found a workaround - magically they could just use the basic telephone network to do the 2FA.
I chose to get one because it's more convenient than having phone, walkman, camera, book, torch , map, compass etc.
I still carry many of those things from time to time when I want them, or when I want extra resilience.
But I's choose the phone most times because it is a cheap, lightweight, small, convenient alternative that makes so many things just a bit easier.
Bloody hell just faffing around with walkman batteries and recording compilation tapes was annoying enough.
It's also very easy to just leave your phone behind and use the alternatives, they pretty much all still exist in some form. I mean that happens to me regularly whenever I lose my phone of when I forget to charge it or (partly) when I'm just out of range of the celluar network. I don't remember either dying or having any police jump on me and force me to buy a new one or charge it up immediately.
I dint do calls often at all, so a flip/dumb phone doesn’t appeal to me much. However, i have been very tempted to upgrade my existing smart watch to one with LTE connectivity and skip the smart phone completely.
The Apple watch, for instance, with LTE can do maps/directions, calls, texts, etc., without needing a smartphone near by. It would be much less to carry, less distractions, and way more convenient.
The big thing it can’t currently do, however, is MFA for my job. It can do Authy and many others, but the one we require doesn’t work, I’ve tried many times, so I’m stuck carrying a smartphone around if I want to remain employed.
2 factor authentication
I’m mostly using my phone as an all in one multimedia device I can fit in my pocket.
I don’t see the flip phone as a good replacement for this kind of use. It wasn’t back in those days either. We used dedicated MP3 players or portable radio for music listening for example.
well functioning linux phone
you couldn’t pay me to go backwards in time, sorry!
see I was around before the age of the smartphone. growing up, I thought my cassette Walkman was the most revolutionary thing ever. and when PDAs were new, I would dreaammm about everything being on one electronic device.
smart phones have given me a freedom that younger me never had.
i no longer need to carry a notebook/memobook around, because I have powerful software on my phone that not only let’s me note-take, but index and SEARCH my own notes. from my pocket.
i don’t need to carry the 3 novels im reading at the moment because they’re on the ereader app in my pocket.
contacts, games, all my news sources, photos, videos, all my media.
to me, this is still revolutionary tech and it has only improved my life
i think we are seeing a rise now of adults who were raised as iPad kids who never had to carry all their shit around the way us older individuals have. so they naturally would want to get away from it because they’ve known no different and they never had to live another way before that point.
its an understandable mentality from that one standpoint. but no, I will never give up my smart phone. i understand the reasons for those that do, but some of us don’t really want to go backwards.
If it’s at that point:
I have a Pixel phone with Graphene for offline maps, Wi-Fi, emergency calls, etc.
Camera is probably the first obstacle. I’ve got a kid, and I really want to have good documentation of her growing up. If there were a dumbphone with a legit camera, that’d be a big deal for me.
After that, probably maps is the next most important thing that I want an actual smart phone for. I remember getting my first smart phone, and probably the main thing I was excited about was always being able to navigate directly to where I wanted to go.
Almost everything else is tertiary to my needs.
I highly recommend just getting a real camera. The pictures I took with my camera 11 years ago are still better quality than an iPhone can manage today. Modern cameras are far far better.
But then I start to feel like
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/082bd118-5a37-4ddc-b283-bea1ea30a26d.jpeg">
this guy, with the “real” camera and the phone camera, but the phone camera is the one I’ve most consistently got on me, because I can’t lug a whole additional piece of hardware around in a camera bag, meanwhile the phone camera pictures are grainy and shitty, and I’d just as soon have a Pixel in my pocket at all times that can take fairly good pictures at all times.
Fair enough, though modern cameras are much smaller:
<img alt="Dimensions of a recent Sony mirrorless camera, shown without lens." src="https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/fc0ea3fe-f8aa-4052-ac84-fd3c5579d5d1.jpeg">
Without the lens, exactly.
Realistically, cameras can be put into two categories - they either effortlessly fit in your pocket, or don’t, and any that don’t tend to get left home unless you intend to specifically go take photos. Doesn’t really matter how much bigger it is at that point.
And if you have a high end smartphone, you probably can’t get a camera that fits in your pocket that would be significantly better.
As the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you.
this won’t fit into a pocket though.
maybe you can reasonably throw into a handbag. but it quickly became a logistical nightmare, with how you’re essentially stuck with cheap/kit lens (to make it small enough) and humidity is also a deal breaker.
also, would you want to abuse a not-cheap APS-C camera that way? I wouldn’t lol
I don't like talking to people.
All my parking meters require an app, and all of my work logins require pressing a confirmation in an app.
Integration with my car stereo for music and GPS
Pretty much nothing i use my phone for can be done on a flip phone.
Smartphone is no distraction for me - I just use it when I need it to do something for me.
maps - occasionally GPS.
mp3 player
mp4s watching on long train / bus rides or when camping.
large sd card (500gb)
memrise/ language learning app.
occasionally guitar tuner
occasionally internet is useful for checking events, buying tickets, checking for hotels and stuff.
occasionally checking emails.
occasionally playing mindustry (when i want my battery to die).
I don't carry a laptop most of the time that i'd need for most of that stuff above.
TBH - I can't use many other apps anyway because I don't want GPS or microG installed - so I'm mostly just f-droid apps.
Edit - i'd also prefer something like simpleX to SMS, but I don't actually know anyone else who uses it - so not an issue really. I just have to SMS.
No decent (local) music player, no DSP, no music streaming with newpipe, decent video player to watch series in bed, screen too small to read books, no e2ee messaging, no web browser, useless camera, operating system without security updates.
I honestly couldn’t care less about calls and SMS, I only use that like few times a year.
Banking, messages, email, calendars, discord, messenger, maps, browser, Voyager (Lemmy), YouTube, music, shattered pixel dungeon, Wikipedia, notes, swipe keyboard, duolingo, WhatsApp, desmos, reminders, camera, photos, home automation….
I use my iPhone for a ton of different things. I pretty much never use it to make calls and hate talking on the phone (which is what flip phones are optimized for).
No way. Life is way better with smart phones. Tap to pay, maps, always having a camera, always having my notes, working as a mobile hotspot, controlling my home security system. 25 other things.
This stuff used to be so much harder. I’m not going back.
I will freely admit there are some dangerous addictive and invasive aspects to it also. I’m ruthless about what apps I will grant permissions to. And I don’t browse the App Store getting tempted by their promises.
I think the appeal of our phones not having to be a computer and not needing all the same rigor and paranoia and extra steps of a computer was really exciting. But it hasn’t turned out to be true. So now I treat it like a computer and approach everything with that level of skepticism. And also treat it like the gateway to capitalism that it is and I am skeptical of anything that’s trying to take my data or money. I think with the right attitude it’s a net positive device in my life
treating your phone like a computer definitely is the way to go. because it is!
my Vivo X100s Pro is a magnitude more powerful than the first hands-me-down laptop I have.
Speaking as someone who never has carried a smartphone, there are a bunch of tradeoffs. I do my banking in person, for instance, and that can be mildly inconvenient. I don’t take a lot of photographs (when I do, I use an old-style single-purpose camera). “Portable media” is a CD player, and I carry a paperback book if I think I might have to wait somewhere for more than ten minutes or so. And so on. Just continuing to live the same way as I did a quarter-century ago.
I expect, however, that it’s a lot easier not to miss what you never had in the first place.
The apps 100%
My job, mostly.
I use Uptime Robot to tell me if anything goes wrong, and I need to be able to VPN into my work network and restart services if they go down. A flip phone can’t do that.
MFA is the biggest hurdle. I literally could not do my job without it.
Any decent password manager should handle generating TOTP codes. A phone is not needed for that.
All of that, plus the benefits of having a good pocket camera to carry around - spontaneous photography is my thing and having a good camera phone solves that equation nicely.
And before anyone says “get a real camera”, I have real cameras and there’s no way they can be carried in my pocket the same way a smartphone does lol. That and the smaller they get, the further image quality worsens to the point where you might just use a (good camera) phone instead.
I grew up with dumb phones, and you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to using them - they suck!
Doesn’t really make much sense for me to switch to a flip phone unless it was specifically built for privacy/security. SMS and regular voice calls are insecure, it likely could connect to fake cell towers uninhibited, it likely doesn’t have hardware switches to disconnect various features e.g. modem, microphone, or camera.
I’ve lived through the cell phone invention, to flip phones, to smartphones. They were terrible back then and I doubt that’s changed now.
Now, I do understand the reason why you moved back to one. For me, I just got aggressive about notifications and turned off most of them. I stopped social media tied to friends and family and am selective about what I’m on and for how long. Takes more personal willpower (or whatever) but you do get used to it in the long run and feel better.
Not at all. It’s really hard to live without the practical features of a smartphone, like web browsing and maps. What I need is privacy, not to throw it all away for a dumbphone.
I believe a lot of the benefits you claim dumbphones provide are all caused by abandoning social media. There’s nothing wrong with technology, it’s just social media. You don’t need to use a dumbphone just to escape social media.
Same. My “smartphone” usage is about 10% phone, 10% SMS service, 10% camera, 5% flashlight, 10% GPS + Map tool, 15% e-mail, and 40% web browser… I carried a pretty capable flip phone from 2006-2013, the things I liked best about it were its longevity and its long battery life (up to a week on standby, 3-4 days even with normal usage.) However, even upgraded with GPS capability, the small screen would have made for a poor map experience, and e-mail and web browser were just out of its practical reach.
Stop browsing social media, maybe install Tor if you want that level of privacy - Smartphones can do that…
I simply wouldn’t. A dumbphone does mostly the things I don’t use a phone for.
And I don’t mean fortnite and tickytocks, I’ve grown up through (most) of the history of mobile phones, I started with my mothers old Nokia 2110 back in like… 1998? I remember how awesome it was to finally have a phone, then to be able to get the bus schedules with the painfully slow WAP connection so I didn’t have to call home, then to have navigation, replace the mp3 player, camera, and eventually even mostly my laptop.
I want to have a datapad with access to all the devices and information in my pocket at all times. If I need it to do something, I know there’s an app for it probably. It’s awesome.
I’d really prefer that the datapad wouldn’t then leech all of my information in return, though.
Oh, and bring back physical keyboards. I’d give my left nut for an HTC Desire Z with 2025 hardware.
Yes, I had to delete lemmy, reddit, twitter, mastodon, all games etc.
But I see 0 harm in:
So yes, on my 2nd smartphone only (first in 2021), but I find that it’s worth it these days.
Enshittification intensifies, but a Linux phone might become very viable in a few years, especially when LLM adapters become easier to use. Self-hosted alternatives to google/apple photos are already very advanced.
The benefits of having a full-featured computer in my pocket are just too many for me to ditch it permanently if I have a choice. While it’s certainly able to distract me if I let it, I don’t think I’ve ever had it disrupt my sleep (aside from late night phone calls).
I think it’s better for most (and potentially easier) to keep to the smartphone and just better control the applications that are on it and the notifications that they raise to make sure it isn’t overly distracting you. This may require disabling certain pre-installed apps (e.g. Facebook is one I always disable and just interact with via browser when I want to). Another pattern to follow is adding barriers to the things that distract you most so it takes a little more effort to interact with your distractions. Hank Green’s Focus Friend app that got popular recently is an example of that – placing an emotional barrier on getting distracted when you need to focus.
But ultimately, we all need to do what’s best for ourselves. Everyone’s suceptibility to distraction is different and if a dumbphone is what works best for you, then by all means, go with that for as long as it’s useful.
My “smart” phone is rarely used as a telephone. It’s set to silent, all notifications turned off, blocks unknown numbers, transcribes voicemail and spends most of the day as a window to the world.
I’m not sure what, if anything, a “dumb” phone would add to my life, except more interruption, more administration to keep contacts up to date, and yet another device to charge and maintain.
presumably having a dumb phone that only does calls and maybe texts can help you stay in contact / reachable but without the possible distractions of the phone itself.
For me, my watch does this job if I need that.
Headphone jack. I just can’t say this enough, despite the fact I have apple’s wireless earbuds (of some clique name) in my pocket at this very second. Headphone jack.
Don’t ask for it for yourself. Ask for it for the d-bag sharing music of some guy grunting over a drum track on the bus. We need to save him from the damage to his reputation when his friends remind him they knew he listened to such trash later when he needs to deny it.
Availability. There fucking aren’t any.
I am more curious about this section:
Does it actually happen? How so? I never had any bank or anything else force me to use a phone, so I am having hard time imagining that. So I am genuinely curious about this portion of your message.
2 factor authentication via app/texting I’d imagine.
An authenticator app is better than basically anything but a physical token / key generator, but the apps are more universally supported. No one is probably going to spoof your phone number to get into your accounts… But doesn’t hurt to me more secure about it anyway.
I see. Thank you.
I am using a YubiKey for those (with a desktop authenticator app). Oddly enough, I do that because I do not trust Android/iPhone to stay secure. I actually trust them even less than a plain old SMS-based auth.
I tried a lot of things to keep my phone/screen usage down.l, including a dump phone. One day I got this brilliant idea to shut my phone off. That was way more efficient than any of the tricks I tried. When I need it for something I turn it on. I’ve since removed most fun apps from the thing.
I still have one game that I play, Lemmy, RSS and web browsers. Apart from those it’s mostly a bureaucracy machine with messaging, email, banking, MFA, work stuff, maps, lots of apps for managing tickets (it’s actually ridiculous), life trackers for some board games. Music, audiobooks and podcasts.
The smart phone is a convenient device that makes my life easier. I don’t whis to handicap myself when I can just turn the phone off instead. I also like to leave the phone at home if for instance I’m going to a party at a well known location.
A flip phone/dumbphone would sort of be mutually exclusive with my use case. I use my smartphone nearly exclusively as a lightweight mobile computer for web browsing, SSHing into my server, and messaging over internet (not SMS). I rarely use the “phone” features of my phone, i.e. phone calls and SMS. So I’d be losing out over the features I do use, in favour of features I don’t use.
If you’re being distracted by your phone and a dumbphone works for you, good on you. I think most people are like me and use their phones as a small mobile computer rather than a phone though, in which case distractions are best handled with one of the many apps/browser add-ons/etc that block websites or apps.
I thought about switching, but instead I uninstalled social media apps and started using it more like an e-reader/MP3 player/messenger. It’s worked pretty well! Been reading a ton in the last year. I may be addicted to fanfiction now though.
Google maps navigation, web browsing, YouTube, music streaming, WhatsApp, email, social media apps for entertainment, news apps, notes app, to do app, public transit app, ebook and audiobook apps, utility apps, good camera, good screen, good speakers.
If I consider all this there is just no way to go back to the old school flip phones or the candy bar phones with the T9 keypad for me, best thing I can do is hide all the apps I don’t want to be distracted by, put app locks on the addictive ones and just be mindful of the time I spend on my phone and figure out other ways to spend my time like dedicated ebook readers or paper books and other activities
I think so too, there are so many useful tools on a phone, nobody has to use social media and apps that have a bad influence instead of just being practical and useful.
I have a minimalistic home screen with essential apps and all else is in folders for ex.
For me to start using my phone as the main way of my computing needs and entertainment needs. Which I don’t. I only use it to send messages and read when my laptop is not in my hands. So I essentially have a not-so-smartphone, not-so-dumbphone.
My understanding is that flip phones only do calls and sms ?
So I never call or text… Only thing I use is an XMPP client, web browser, youtube music (until I replace that with selfhosted) and would use maps (but right now I broke the GPS on my phone so not that …)
So I don’t think I could use a flip phone, mostly because none of these applications except maybe music work on a flip phone ? Webbrowser needs a full sized screen…
MFA & Authenticator apps
Signal.
And soon Veilid
What’s that to do with dumb phones?
That’s something I’d want to use on a dumb phone as soon as it’s out of beta.
Web browser. SMS and calling are completely useless. I need a phone so I can access the internet outside. I dont want a dumb 20 year old phone I want a modern phone without the pointless bullshit.
My ideal phone would have a small screen, replaceable battery, shit camera, shit speakers, 5G, two USB C slots and be able to run android apps and be cheap
Same minus Android apps, like late old Nokia ones. Nokia stuff was perfect. Also UX is always treated today as if those tasks were impossible to combine with a good UX, and thus modern typical UX is just how you can do it.
Except late Nokia before MS acquisition disproves that by its existence. Its UX was better than any of that shit, with all the necessary things possible to do.
Maybe not a dumb phone but I would love to use a phone with an e-ink screen. I know there are some projects about this or some Chinese phones but I haven’t met an e-ink phone that I can install a custom ROM yet.
That would solve most of the issues others have brought up. It’s probably fast enough for navigation and definitely fast enough for banking, MFA, RCS/Signal, etc…
Try the HiSense A9 Pro. I don’t have one personally but from what I have seen and read, it can run Lineage OS quite well (actually better than it’s own Android OS). I am considering it eventually but haven’t made the move yet. Currently on Moto Razr 2024 which I am using with mostly FOSS apps and no social media whatsoever. I used to have a Pixel 9 Pro running Graphene OS which I truly enjoyed but it died on me and the warranty was not applicable due to me having installed that unsupported OS… So yeah, shit happens and I got myself this Razr for good price urgently since I was travelling when it happened.
Thanks for the suggestion, seems actually nice with all the ability to install a custom ROM. Sadly, it’s not practical for me to get it from abroad because of our government’s horrendous regulations about buying anything from outside of the country unless you are a trader. Even if I manage to buy it without any problems, there is also IMEI unlock fee which is almost the same price with this phone. My best bet would be, get this phone via a friend who comes from abroad and change the IMEI to my old phone. So, not soon but maybe some day.
Can I ask how old you are OP? A range is fine
Really only a handful of things:
navigation while traveling - don’t need it much, if at all at home, but I travel often enough for work that losing that capability would be painful.
MFA - authenticator apps are the most convenient way to do MFA. SMS/email are terrible options for this and should only be used if there is absolutely no other option.
Access to the internet while away from home, both while traveling and while out and about
Music playback in the car
Communication - most of my friends don’t use SMS/voice to talk, instead preferring Discord or Signal
Basically everything else I do on my phone could be done from a more proper computer with minimal inconvenience.
All I really need is calls, sms, a solid browser and some more robost messaging apps like signal and matrix/element - I’m a prime candidate for PostmarketOS if we ever get a stable piece of hardware. I have an old oneplus 6 that I’ve played with it on, its so close. If a flip phone could master that today, sure
I do use tap to pay, but meh I dont think I would miss it and android auto in my car could easily just be a bluetooth audio connection
Dumbphones are ridiculously insecure, and they only support SMS communications which don’t have any end-to-end encryption.
I hadn’t even thought of it from this angle. That’s a hard stop for me right there.
Any flip phone you can basically hook up to bitpim or a cellebrite or whatever and copy its entire contents in a matter of seconds. There’s no challenge. There’s no security whatsoever.
This!
I estimate that 60% of my phone use is for audiobooks while driving.
I for one would go flip from Japan, Korean, manufactured phone. That could tether, mini tablet for maps or email or lemmy
navigation, and living in a country where it’s really hard to find books
I will switch to a dumb phone or even a pager for sms and phone calls the day i can offload all the rest to a VR headset i wear all day everyday XD
Once upon a time, I set up my phone so I didn’t need to look at it: it was basically e-ink and audiobooks.
Then I started adding games and learning apps back (I don’t remember why), and now I feel like I’m not going back until e-ink reaches parity with smartphones (refresh rate, cell coverage, near-current OS).
well, I work in IT. So I am required to use apps like Teams for mobile and DUO 2FA in order to authenticate my laptop sessions.
Now, could I use only SMS/email 2FA? Technically yes. And I could just have Teams on my work laptop and have that nearby all the time, but it would be extremely inconvenient. Navigation would also be a big problem. Due to the nature of my job, I frequently have to visit a large number of different sites around my area. Having to open my laptop each time I need to go somewhere, open up a map site like OSM or Google maps to get the directions, print them off or write them down, then follow them manually hoping that I don’t encounter random slowdowns or closures in an area I am not familiar with is basically a non-starter for me.
As for personal use, navigation rears its ugly head again. I often will be traveling with friends or family and we decide on a whim to change our destination for dinner or hangouts after based on times, appetites, budgets, closures, etc. Having a map app on my phone makes that easy to do. It would be impossible to do that without it, unless I had a near exhaustive knowledge of my whole city and surrounding suburbs.
Honestly navigation is the #1 thing. Random other stuff comes up, like my mobile password manager Bitwarden, or my various apps like my City’s bus/metro app, and my city’s parking app. Both of which again, I could make do without, but it would be extremely tough and inconvenient.
I’ve decided that the happy medium for me is to use as much FOSS phone tech as possible. That way at least the tracking and data harvesting is minimized and I am generally not supporting megacorps.
I use GrapheneOS, with mostly FOSS apps. The proprietary apps I do use are isolated with GOS’s special sauce. I use Magic Earth for my navigation, which while not open source, the data sets they use are, and they are not google, and based in the EU, so far better privacy than Google’s trash.
I wish I could switch to a flip phone, I’ve seriously considered it many times over the last several years. But for my lifestyle, it’s just not feasible. The best balance for me is to compute ethically on my mobile. I have thought about going for the weekend with just a dumb phone, that might be possible, but I’ll have to see.
I have exactly one game and exactly one 2fa app that I would meaningfully miss out on switching to a dumb pbone, outside of those two things I would genuinely consider it.
I am actively avoiding calls and noone writes to me. If I were to give up a smartphone flip phone would be nearly useless to me
I used a flip/dumbphone for most of my teenage and high school years.
It’s like asking what would make me go back to having a DOS computer and playing Wolf3D after being in full body virtual reality with Half Life Alyx.
I don't use a smartphone enough to worry about it. If I am using my phone, most of the time it's either Anki, Google Maps, or, like you mention, banking/government stuff.
Texting via SMS (or whatever it is these days) isn't really a thing in Japan, either, which makes things more difficult especially as I despise talking on the phone. If, for example, I'm at the supermarket and wife remembers something she needs, getting that message is good
The one reason I have a nice, relatively new phone is that I want a fairly large, OLED screen for reading after dark. Yeah, I use it for a bunch of other stuff, but I wouldn’t really miss any of those. The only thing I really need is the ability to make it look like text is floating in the dark over my head in bed.
Dumb phone features are about 5% of what I use on a daily basis on my phone.
I might switch to a flip phone if it had gps and maps.
That’s simply the killer app for smart phones, at this point it’s a necessary part of my life. Without it I need a separate device just for that, and that device is actually less useful.
Edit: now that I’m reading other responses I have to agree, secure messaging and 2fa are really important too.
I could live without everything else, but to be honest, I don’t use much else. A few games, Lemmy, music apps, audiobook apps. Of those, Lemmy is the app most likely to leave me feeling upset, or like I want to doomscroll.
I think limiting the apps I use is the biggest thing I can do to not make the phone a negative influence for me. But to be clear, if that starts happening, Lemmy is the first to go, I already don’t use any other social media.
I think it definitely depends on the persons needs. I use my phone for maps when I am going somewhere I am unfamiliar with. I use it for pod casts and audio books all the time. I use it for checking my bank account. Could I use something else to do these? Sure, but do I have access to all of the secondary devices to accomplish all of the above, not always. So yeah, the smart phone did become the catch all for a ton of daily processes, and I don’t have to carry 10 devices anymore.
Eh, I see no reason to switch to a dumb phone, because I don’t think I’m that bad with my current phone. My main User profile on GrapheneOS is pretty minimal when it comes to apps, it’s mostly messaging, banking, navigation, workout and music (I should probably move Lemmy and Pixelfed to a different profile, but they both have pretty little potential for scrolling for too long since the new content is naturally limited).
The only game on this profile is the one I’m developing as a hobby project lol
All the annoying Apps (Secondary Email, Amazon, Aliexpress, Linkedin, Smartlife, Grocery store coupon apps etc) are banished to a secondary profile that has no permission to run in the background or send any notifications.
nothing would stop me and honestly if I could find a decent and new one similar to my old Sprint/Nokia phone from like 2001 I'd use it. I can't stand smart phones, I never liked them.
I would not give up the smartphone for a dumb phone, primarily for the superior security and privacy smartphones provide that dumb phones just do not have technology for.
This conversation has a tone of settling for inferior technology to do the work a well-designed smartphone experience should.
The smartphone can be made pretty “dumb” - the user experience has more to do with the software (apps) added to it than the hardware (the smartphone) itself.
Aside from the apps the platform bundles, I only have Signal (for text and voice), email, a browser, calendar, a note taking app and a FOSS music player. I have disabled all sound and visual notifications and removed all apps off the main screen.
Of late, I’ve moved the SIM-card onto a secondary phone that resides in my bag, which is only switched-on for navigation or if I need WiFi in a snap.
It has not always been this way for me and I am sure my setup will continue to evolve as my needs change.
I know exactly what I need my phone for: music, maps, banking, messaging, books and sometimes traveling. Anything else I have is a distraction that I’m addicted to have.
You know what keeps me from binning it? The FOMO, and not being able to hold conversations with friends and coworkers because I’m would not be tuned to the latest trends and happenings, and that sucks.
The best setup in my eyes would be :
Dumb phone to take with you for calls / text messages and a non Sim card smartphone that would have apps on it but be hotspot over using the dumb phones data. Basically wifi only
That way if I were just doing errands on the weekend, just take the dumb phone. And then take the smartphone for onsite job trips and whatnot.
Smartphone would be degoogled. Remember, 2fa authentication doesn’t need mobile data to work, its time based
I prefer smaller smart phones. I like having the mobile computer with me, but I want my pocket space back. I did look at jellyphone, but seems like service is spotty and i travel between countries. Stuck with the smaller pixels for now as the least offensive option while providing good compatibility for apps and travel.
Honestly, for me, it’s the one-two-three punch of easy notes taken anywhere + podcasts + camera.
notes : before smartphones I carried a notebook in my pocket. And sometimes I still do; writing longhand is still pleasant for me, and being able to sketch and doodle with my notes is still clunky with a touchscreen, amazingly. But the experience of losing my notebook, or not having the right one with me when I need it, is disproportionately frustrating to me.
podcasts : this is one of the few ways my ADHD brain truly focuses. Listening to a podcast while walking, biking, running, driving, doing dishes, cleaning a room, mowing the lawn, etc. is almost foolproof in getting me to pay attention to the content. I have to be in the right mood to read, and videos are background noise to me after having the Discovery Channel or Scifi Channel on 24/7 in my apartment in college. Before smartphones I had a trusty RCA Lyra that went everywhere with me; and while the form factor and experience were fantastic, I now have a backlog of over 800 podcast episodes that would not fit on that device’s 512MB internal storage. (Also, I just got a pair of noise canceling earbuds, and I have to admit I really like them)
camera : I’ve chosen my last four smartphones based on the camera quality. I’ve got kids, and being able to take adorable pictures of them at the drop of a hat is very useful to me. I don’t need all the computational nonsense, but I do need it to be good enough and ever-present. Before smartphones, I would occasionally bring a digital camera around with me, but I can’t afford one that would give me the quality I want, and it wouldn’t fit in my pocket anyway.
Messaging, fitness tracking, and work stuff is also easier, though not in a way that I don’t think I could backfill with other things if needed.
Nostalgia aside, the experience of these big three use cases is indisputably better with a smartphone than it was in 2005. Could I live without them? Yes! Absolutely. But I’d prefer not to, and since I shook my social media addiction I don’t really feel the need to.
Well I had the displeasure of having to use a candybar style phone my mother was using cause it was ‘easier’ for her.
But in my case, I disagree with the base premise of this post. The biggest anxiety and distraction caused by my phone is via phone calls. Asynchronous communications like sms and email are much better for me.
Whatsapp. That’s the only fucking reason I’m not using a dumbphone. In Brazil, everyone uses it. Need to talk to a company? Whatsapp. Friends and family? Wpp. Book a medical checkup? Wpp.
There’s also the problem of cell phone fees being abusive when calling/messaging people from a different company.
That sounds dystopian
Dumb phones with KaiOS can have WhatsApp installed
Exclusively Internet calls and texts. Most of my communication is split between regular and texting and discord or Whatsapp.
Doesn’t have to be those apps but something I can make a call with internationally
geocaching
Pretty much because my smartphone is basically my digital Swiss army knife. Like even if I got a separate digital camera and MP3 Player, I also use it for navigation and to communicate with my parents and friends over signal, and like hell I am gonna give up signal. Add to that it’s also my portable wifi hotspot when I’m out, my train tickets, and how I pay for things when I’m sans-purse, I don’t know if I can give up my smartphone.
Would it be good for me to get off social media and to stop doomscrolling the news? Yes, but I can do that by going out and touching grass.
Keep in mind that doom scrolling while laying on grass is also an option. I will come back later for more uninteresting tips.
I don’t make phone calls and rarely use SMS. All the features I need/want from a phone would be missing.
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I genuinely love my phone. It makes my life better.
Being forced to use a stock google android or iOS would be what drives me to use a dumb phone.
As long as I can install a custom ROM like LineageOS or GrapheneOS, I’m good.
What phone are you using?
Pixel 9 pro
I’d like to be able to use Signal.
The main blocker is MFA. I can technically work around Google Authenticator (I use Aegis currently) because I can run it on my laptop, but I also need Okta verify (work VPN), Symantec VIP (bank), and the Steam app.
And some other very nice to haves:
I can find workaround for the rest.
That said, wouldn’t it just be easier to uninstall the apps that cause distractions?
hey idk if you heard but Organic forked, I’m on CoMaps now Have a good day!
I haven’t. I looked into it, and that’s quite the drama. I like the name of CoMaps better, so I’ll check it out. I see shared commits, but they seem to go to Organic Maps first and then I guess get cherry-picked onto CoMaps?
I’m closer to carrying around a cyberdeck than a dumbphone.
I don’t like either sms or phonecalls.
Precisely. I’d be more likely to switch to one of those pocket “hot spot” devices. Just a thing in my pocket that gives devices I control internet access and maybe has a shitty web interface I can log into for basic SMS when absolutely necessary. No microphone, no camera, no GPS, no access to my actual computing environment. Only 2 downsides are maintaining battery charge in multiple devices and the fact that those hotspots are generally hot garbage, and so unreliable.
Maybe, a flip phone if one existed that was 1) a full-time good quality internet hotspot (i.e., good battery), and 2) lacked a GPS and camera, and hardware disconnected the microphone when closed. Now that I think about it, that would be a fantastic device… if it existed.
I’m not a toddler so don’t need help with “distractions” so nothing. That’s like reverting computers to windows 95 just because modern operating systems can run Steam.
I don’t even know where to begin. And I am not even going to bother, I am to old to keep explaining this shit. Don’t even know why I replied as long as its clear you’re giving mad neckbeard vibes
There are many reasons including neurodivergence that someone could benefit from external limitations. Infantalizing poor impulse control is ableist and condescending.
Nah I said nothing about disability. This notion that healthy adults need mental herding is very pervasive and has absolutely captured the pop tech culture.
Need is a strong word, but it is very true that the environment you put people in will influence their behavior. Grocery stores filled with attractively packaged highly processed foods will drive more highly processed food consumption than if you had to show proof of age ID and sign a disclosure before being allowed into the back room to buy those same foods in plain brown wrapper containers blazoned with all the health warnings that apply to them.
Handheld screen tech delivers dopamine release as powerful as most recreational drugs / experiences. People are definitely “herded” by how that tech is delivered, default settings that most of them never take the time to learn how to change, other settings that annoyingly constantly reset themselves to undesired PAY ATTENTION TO ME configurations, etc.
So, yeah, mindfulness of how your devices are shaping your behavior is a “higher level of awareness” that we as a society should be collectively trying to attain.
Skill issue
No
Pretty much this but I will elaborate
No motherfucka.
I haven’t thought about switching mainly because I listen to music, books from the library and podcasts on it. I don’t want to go back to carrying 2 devices. But I mostly use my phone to look stuff up, check email, and music/books etc. I don’t really use social media on it.
It would have to have Signal.
WhatsApp is non optional
It’s solving device addiction with another device. Sure it will be very interesting to investigate phone models to pick from. Indeed we are good at tricking ourselves. Creating “windows” with no phone at all works better for me.
.
You may as well ask me to throw away me phone entirely. I don’t carry a smartphone to make phone calls. I hate phone calls.
95% of that is spam. And an old dumbphone won’t even have auto spam detection.
I use my phone to take pictures, send those pictures, look for restaurants, navigate to those restaurants, listen to music, etc.
So what you’re asking for is to make the part I hate about phones worse, while removing all the functions I actually use my phone for.
yeah my phone is not a phone, I fucking hate the phone. it’s a computer
I’m switching to a Garmin smartwatch and a point n shoot camera in the near future. I’m excited to see how it changes adventuring.
Why would I want a device that I never use? I only make phone calls roughly 3 times per week. I message multiple times a day, but flip phones had shitty interfaces for typing. The vast majority of my phone use is web search, camera, navigation, and messaging. Flip phones could get better cameras than they used to have. Their screens were too small to do great at web searching. Navigation might work, I guess. Although I used to love my Treo and Pre for the full physical keyboard, I prefer swype typing now to tapping or physical keys.
I don’t use the phone part to be honest. It’s an always connected mobile computer. The only calls I answer are from my wife and mom.
Having a software authentication that can hold multiple keys for MFA. I’d love to switch to a dumb phone but that’s pretty much a requirement and I’ve never found a device for MFA that is as convenient for MFA
I was gonna buy one of those Lite phones, but it was expensive so I just deleted time-wasting apps and now my smartphone respects my time. Hardest part was getting people to just text me instead of various social media messenger apps. In the end, I deleted my accounts and now everyone from school thinks I’m dead, but those close to me can reach me easily. Sometimes I still binge YouTube via Firefox on my phone though, so I installed “Unhook” which blocks recommended videos, so I can only see what I search for.
I guess just remember that your smartphone can be dumb too. And still a lot more convenient than a flip phone.
Let’s start with the price
I’ve been using a flip phone as my actual phone for a while now. I just find the tactility of being able to flip open the phone to answer, and flip shut the phone to hang up, is so much more satisfying that swiping on a screen. I do have my smartphone because I need WhatsApp and MFA for work related reasons, but I have no desire to be accessible 24/7, so if I’m out and about you can fuck off until I get back.
My smartphone isn’t a phone with “extra” features to me. My smartphone is a portable personal computer with extra sensors, a GPS receiver, and wireless internet, which also happens to have a phone app. I don’t want to carry an extra “dumb” phone. I would prefer my smart watch to be the communication and identity hub for me and my devices: holding the SIM card, acting as a wifi hotspot, routing calls and internet to my handheld brick or laptop, etc. Instead of acting like a third party add-on, it would be a mostly distraction free core. Let me use a smartphone, laptop, steam deck, cobbled together cyber deck, or whatever else have you as my local screen, storage cache, and/or proper desktop. Then I can put the screens down or leave them behind without feeling cut off or potentially stranded in a world that practically requires it to navigate with any ease. I want a smart watch that enables me to leave the house without car keys, driver’s license, and credit cards; essentially with nothing but my watchphone. I want to be a cyberpunk Dick Tracy. What I want, with the freedoms and open standards I want, with the privacy I want, without being locked into a single monopoly walled garden, is probably a pipe dream. I want what is probably the next evolution of the “year of the Linux desktop”. But a kid can dream.
My job. I have to answer emails in the field, I need GPS to get to job sites (they don’t sell ADC map books at 7-11 anymore). I need to take pictures and respond to texts. I don’t need these things but as a business owner I’d rather have the one smart box in my pocket than have to carry around the individual tools for reasons. Also, I carry a flip phone. It just happens to be an extremely smart flip phone (Razr)
Oh, and ParkMobile. I can pay for parking nationwide with my phone. And Audiobooks. and… well shit, I guess it doesn’t end really. Sudoku while I poo for example.
Oh, oh, and also… why would I want to get rid of my smart phone? You meantion getting sleep. I don’t use my phone in bed. Bed is for sleeping and sexy times. I don’t do social media (unless you include this which is really just the modern version of channel surfing with chat attachment.) Maybe it’s my age. I didn’t grow up with screens like kids these days so to me it’s just another tool. I’m responding to this on my PC not my phone.
My banking apps, I don’t feel comfortable spending money when I can’t see my accounts in real time. Had a bad experience with BoA when I was younger.
I need maps and Line. Banking and everything else is nice but maps and Line are essential.
What is line?
Messaging app everyone uses in Japan. I think the US is the only country people really use sms anymore but could be wrong.
Mainly my music. I’ve long thought about a dumb phone to avoid gps tracking everywhere as well as the spyware built in and the needless looking at it all the time. But music and podcasts need to come with me wherever I go. So I’d be carrying something akin to a smart phone around anyway. Doesn’t really side step the problem effectively.
Anytime your phone reaches out to towers it’s being tracked. Hell, HAM radio operators can be tracked with gprs just by micing up. It’s part of the reason I still have my license. The other is having a backup if I go somewhere with no phone reception. I don’t have an ear for code but I can pump out SOS or scream mayday on all the frequencies (and yeah, of course it’s a flashed handset, I will pay fines if it means mine or others lives are saved)
i don’t want my phone to be dumb, I want it to be open source, front to back! The issue of smartphones isn’t that its “too smart”, instead we should talk about why the control of our phones aren’t within our grasp, but on the palm of corpos and govs.
you want to use your smartphone while keeping it simple? Install less apps and disable ALL telemetry (this is where being open source comes in).
smartphones are handy as a camera or emergency hotspot.
I grew up before mobile phones so I know I have the skills to function without one. There isn’t much I would miss. I am ok without social media, maps, chat apps etc.
Its the odd little things that I don’t do very often that could get annoying. Stuff like translating a label in a foreign language. There isn’t really an easy way to do that without a smart phone.
Aside from the Rotary Un-Phone, there are pretty much no dumb phones anymore. Those that market themselves as dumb are just reskinned full-fat platforms.
Even almost all flip phones are smart phones with a dumb skin, as they run either Android or KaiOS.
The main reason why I would switch is for device security - a true dumb phone OS that operates purely out of the ROM and has no ability to install anything that could survive a reboot.
And for something that primitive, it would be a flip phone on par with the Motorola StarTac. Simple black-on-green screen, low-res display, with a calendar and address book as the only non-phone, non-SMS functionality.
Navigation and manga
Well, I can buy a GPS map device. Cash payments are not much of a problem until the Govt. starts adding that extra tax on cash withdrawal from ATMs. I will need to wait for companies to grow a brain and stop using WhatsApp for work.
For all else, I use my computer anyway.
Buying train tickets, buying concert tickets, checking schedules for work or school or train times, communicating with people over something that isn’t SMS or calls, taking nice photos on the go, listening to music.
Of course many of these would be solvable with a different device (handheld camera, mp3 player) or by buying tickets and checking schedules in advance, but the trade off isn’t worth it for me
I would buy a feature phone today, preferably something eink, if it was painless to switch my SIM between it and my smart phone. Having to take the SIM out of one, put it in the other, then turn on the phone is not painless and they do not design the little draws to support thousands of open/closes against the contacts to read the SIM.
There are times I want the smart phone to have the SIM because I will want or need the extra functionality and if you just make the feature phone do everything then its just morphed into a smart phone with extra steps. I want the feature phone to be basic as I can get away with.
That said, I really want google wallet or similar that I can share between the two phones for my passes and tickets, audio streaming support, and maps. Something like a Hisense A9 would fit the bill but the temptation to add more apps than the basics would be too great, plus I still need a way to switch SIMs between the phones.
I cannot replace my smart phone, rather than supplement, with any feature phone because I use it for such a wide range of things. I can ssh from it to my home devices, I can manage my bank accounts, it tracks my health, it provides video and audio streaming on and offline, I can read and write documents/spreadsheets, plus anything you can do via a web browser.
I’m currently in Asia and – in this country at least – you are basically required to have a smart phone to do anything. Credit cards don’t exist. And they use QR payments for most things. So that implies a camera and a banking app (for your bank). Many places don’t accept cash anymore (!) - I don’t really get how they can do that because not everyone has a smart phone (poor people (obviously) & tourists (not even allowed to get bank accounts here) come immediately to mind — of which there are millions of both). I think so far it’s not a big deal because these people just spend their money elsewhere, but I worry this will become entrenched.
Anyway, I tried “dumb phoning” my iPhone and there’s just way too many things I rely on daily that require a smart phone: paying by QR code, banking, international banking, translating, navigation, ride booking, accommodation booking, messaging on iMessage, Line, Messenger (almost everyone in this country uses the last 2). When travelling in a foreign country, these things aren’t really optional. If I can’t pay for a bus ticket or food, I could be really screwed.
Now you might say some of things in my list are doable without apps; like accommodation booking… sure. But even if you find a place old skool style, how do you contact them? Most don’t have web pages, they use Facebook pages. And the contact info is usually a Line or Messenger id. Even if somehow you managed to find a phone number, they are unlikely to speak English. I’m old enough to remember travelling before the internet and honestly it was great and worked well, but that was because everyone was on the same footing. We’ve lost that and I actually think it’s much more difficult now.
I’ve gotten rid of most social media (except fediverse) which has helped my screen time a lot, but I think going back to a feature phone is, unfortunately, impossible here. I do hope that they see how economically unfair requiring a smart phone is though and at least pass some laws that require shops to take cash payments (last I heard these laws did exist in the West).
There’s literally no point. I already use my phone for phone things, not as a second computer.