After a long addiction where I had used my phones as projects rather than tools, I decided to unwind. The blinking notification light was the first one to go, as I couldn't concentrate when it was active (which was most of the time). The next step was to buy a huge battery which made my phone twice as thick, but I only needed to charge it every few days which was a huge thing not having to worry about constantly. After a couple of weeks I started disabling more and more of the apps which made my phone buzz, and at the end I had only the most basic apps.

At the final step I realized that I had a huge expensive phone with only basic functionality and a web browser that always seemed to steal my attention (procrastinating on the web). I bought a Nokia C5-00 (dumbphone) and told my family that if they needed to reach me, they'd have to text or call - everything else would be dealt with a couple of times a day on my tablet.

It's been a year, and I love the freedom to work and be with friends and family without constantly having my phone in my face. I also seem to handle boring situations much better as I no longer can rely on my phone to entertain me whenever I have 3 minutes to spare. I am now a 22 year old Swedish programmer with a dumbphone that I charge once every 1-2 weeks, and I love it. Also, the reactions from co-workers and train conductors scanning my SMS-tickets are very interesting.

e: grammar

I did a similar thing. I replaced my iPhone (after I dropped and smashed it) with a Nokia 105 "dumbphone". It can only do calls and SMS messaging. It's the best thing I've ever done. I knew I'd get by without most things but I wondered how I'd get by without google maps in my pocket. I bought a road atlas for the car and quickly re-learned how to read a map and plan a route the old fashioned way. If I'm going somewhere the seems remotely complicated to find I'll just print off a google map before I leave. Looking back now, it's scary how reliant I'd become on dumbly following google maps turn by turn directions.

Emails, again I simply deal with the way we used to before smartphones. As and when.

Most 2FA systems also still support SMS as an option so even that's not a limiting factor of using a dumbphone.

My new phone cost me £10 and costs only £5/month to run because I literally cannot use any data.

The only downside I've encountered is the feeling that others are being ignorant/rude whilst blankly staring into their phone. You don't notice this when you're doing it too, but it's really very noticeable once you stop.

I've never been truly addicted to my phone, even though I've had a smartphone since before they were a thing (HP iPaq, running Windows CE). I've always been app-phobic on phones, only ever installing the minimum that I need. As such the notification problem has never been an issue. If my phone is flashing, it means I've missed a call, or there's a text message. That's it. Most people don't use SMS anymore for casual conversation, so I don't get pinged about those until I'm in front of a computer.

I do like having a web browser in my pocket though. I'm old, and I was there when dial-up BBS's gave way to basic dial-up internet. I used the internet as a resource, and I still mostly have that mindset. It's not an entertainment platform for me - I fire up a browser when I want to find something out, and then I close it again. However I do watch the odd fun YouTube video from time to time (not on my phone tho).

This switching away from being always-online seems to be picking up as a trend. I think it's a good thing. Like all things, the internet should only be used in moderation.

The internet is a tool, no different from a shovel or a paintbrush, and you don't spend all day carrying those around and looking at them, do you?

--

Edit: s/spade/shovel

I disagree with the Internet is a tool... statement. The Internet is definitely not just a tool. It's a different type of consciousness; it's not completely mature yet as to approach the organic, human type, but it's definitely much bigger than a tool.

Your disconnection from it may help you rediscover your own consciousness and do things the old-fashioned way but it doesn't confer any superiority or higher levels of intelligence or higher information evaluation abilities on you.

What kind of higher information evaluation abilities are you talking about? The way I understand it is that if you're using the internet, is you're disconnecting from the pipeline, and evaluating information that you already have. Internet is for gathering, maybe filtering information. But the actual evaluation is usually separate from it.

You're looking at a very specific case. My point is more general.

Some people tend to believe that a return to the old ways of no invasion of the zeros and ones of the Internet would make their lives better by some significant margin. They see some less digitalized folk and wish they could have that life because they also believe the lives of these folks are much simpler, more triangular, etc.

Nassim Taleb and a few others have advocated a disconnect from news. This makes sense from a knowledge building POV as some folks actually only know stuff about the world through mainstream media, which I believe is particularly unhealthy and misleading.

Disconnecting from the entire Internet however is a different matter. My point is that such a recoiling into a zero Internet shell doesn't necessarily confer any superior analytical abilities on anybody. It may help your sanity/peace of mind/mental health (depending on what your obsessions are)/etc.

And to your point about actual evaluation being separate from the information processing pipeline, I also disagree. More often than not you still need the various resources available on the Internet to aid in the evaluation of the data/information you have collected.

There's such a thing as a responsible/profitable use of the Internet and the gains are probably much higher than whatever any sound minded individual would gain from a disconnection.

I did mostly the same, except:

- I went without any phone at all at first, after breaking my smartphone much like you did; then decided I should at least have an old Nokia charged in case of emergency. No contract at all.

- I don't like using it, and I still hate voice/SMS 2FA, I use Authy instead wherever possible.

- I cheat a bit, since I do have a Nexus 7 still which I use around home and sometimes put in my pocket for podcasts. I don't think this is really cheating though, since it's WiFi only, so it's not really different from using a laptop - I can't be connected unless I'm stationary.

> The only downside I've encountered is the feeling that others are being ignorant/rude whilst blankly staring into their phone. You don't notice this when you're doing it too, but it's really very noticeable once you stop.

Yes! I don't mind it too much at the moment though, because I just think I'm glad not to be doing that. I've occasionally half-joked (with family) something like 'Well, it's nice to be out somewhere different for a change while we use our phones, isn't it?' :)

Just be aware that SMS 2FA isn't considered secure anymore:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/08/nist_is_no_lo...

https://www.wired.com/2016/06/hey-stop-using-texts-two-facto...

http://blog.kraken.com/post/153209105847/security-advisory-m...

I'm aware of this. It's still more secure than not using 2FA at all though.

> Emails, again I simply deal with the way we used to before smartphones. As and when.

Which is exactly the opposite of my way of handling e-mail versus SMS. It it's really really urgent, be courteous enough to give your time and call me. For anything else send an e-mail.

E-mail is my primary communication channel and any device that can't handle it is useless. Whereas SMS is discourteous to me as it demands that I read and respond on one particular device, rather than that which is most convenient or appropriate. Quite often I'll read an e-mail on my phone and sit-down at the laptop to compose a reply.

Have been thinking about doing the same. I've had a company paid phone the las five years but I wish they would get me a good pad and a cheap nokia instead.

Have you asked them?

I guess I will do next time it comes up.

In at least one way it should be an obvious win: my phones take some beating. My pad has taken significantly less.

The "set Do Not Disturb for 12:00AM - 11:59PM" trick has been amazing for me the past month or so I started the experiment. I set it to allow texts and calls from my Favorites through (e.g. wife, mom, dad) -- but essentially every other type of notification is non-urgent and likely even non-important.

By far the best app to silence has been my email. I consider it a luxury that I can come home and not worry about it. I highly suggest it to anyone who thinks they have a screen addiction.

I have my Android set as "Do not Disturb: forever", while allowing calls to still ring. Since people don't call me unless it's something urgentish, it works well, and notifications never distract me when I'm with others any more.

I do the same, and in addition the phone sits face down on my desk, to prevent me getting distracted by the notification led.

Love this idea, and the favorites exceptions make it very workable. Going to give it a try.

Is toggling "manual" just as effective? Good idea, I'll try this too.

I solved that problem with a far simpler solution. I don't own a smartphone. I spend eight to ten hours watching a screen at work. Don't want to spend another five doing the same thing in my leisure. I also don't own any tablets, for the same reason, except a Kindle which I use every now and then in commuting. Most people I meet feel surprised when I tell them I don't have a smartphone especially considering that I'm a "computer guy". But the thing is I don't really need it. I can't do any productive work on it and even if I could I wouldn't want to. As for the PC, I'm also off any social network, excluding Hacker News which is addictive but at least I'm learning stuff so I don't consider it procrastination.

I also did this for a very long time. Being the local computer geek everyone expect me to know everything about computers and phones and of course have the latest phone in my pocket.

But being the local computer geek gives me insights that others do not have. I already saw the problem coming a mile away with the first mobile phones long before they were called smartphones. I already had the whole village asking me for advice with their computers (the few that had computers). I helped everyone build theirs for gaming and had to help them when they had problems with viruses and so on.

Why would I want to be reachable at any time? Would a smartphone make it even worse? You bet. Would I be getting a phone any time soon? No way.

I did eventually get a Nokia 3210 though, which stayed with me until a couple of years ago when I gave up and bought a smartphone to be able to screen incoming robot sales calls...

I do have a smart phone, because I got one handed by my employer and I kinda need it for work. However I find it almost unusable, the screen is too small, the onscreen keyboard and general touch interface seems cumbersome. The result is that I spend almost no time with my phone, only when forced.

iMessage has to one of the greatest inventions in recent time. It allows me to communicate with my family, without forcing to use an actual phone.

Perhaps you are just using your smartphone wrong?

I use it to do:

- Read News article and books on my communte

- Use the flashlight in the morning or evening when it is to dark (when winter i use it every evening when going home from the train to my flat 10 minutes)

- Use it as a phone

- use maps for navigation

- Check out gps stuff when sitting in a plain

- use the sync feature to have an up to date contact list

- get calendar notifications

- use it as an alarm clock

- use it for listing to music (but not that often)

Otherwise it is in my pocket but thats it. Like my keys. I don't use it at home at all.

I think it is actually your first point regarding reading news articles and books that people are trying to avoid. People become addicted to constantly looking up things to distract themselves instead of paying attention to what is going on around them.

If you take public transportation, look around, everyone is looking at their phones and no one is interacting with the real people around them.

We have become a society lost in their digital devices.

I look around, i'm not a very focused reader but i don't think a train is in any way a useful way of meeting people or communicating much.

I don't value shallow talk with strangers very much. Or have you been on a subway and was discussion with someone strange daily politics?

People report being happier after talking to strangers on public transit. They also underestimate how open other passengers are to it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/opinion/sunday/hello-stra...

Sea turtles live long. That doesn't mean lying on a beach all my life is right for me.

The people and things going on around me are not interesting.

Selecting for proximity means wasting my life on random noise.

An $800 phone is a bargain if It lets me spend my limited time on good stuff.

I had taken the public bus for years and I don't recall people interacting before smart phones were popular. Maybe it's different on a subway or in different cities.

I found the worst people around me with phones are the older ones. The teenagers put it down but the older people seem to think that a text will expire if they don't respond immediately, regardless of what they are doing at the time.

Well I don't need a flashlight, it's never too dark where I live (Greece) regardless of season. As for your other points. Reading: As I said I have a Kindle which is far better than any smartphone for books, and thanks to Instapaper I can read pretty much everything on it. GPS: I don't need it, my car has an embedded one and it works just fine. When I'm not in my car wandering around without knowing where exactly I am is a joy, actually it's one of my hobbies. I get to accidentally find new places all the time. As for a phone per se, I have a dumbphone (Samsung E2600). Alarm: I don't need one, I have a steady sleeping pattern and I wake up automatically.

I'm not saying they're plain useless. I just don't risk getting hooked on them in exchange for a handful of useful services. I can live happily without owning one. If I ever feel that owning a smartphone will make my life better I'd gladly buy one. It's not ideology that stops me from getting one. I just don't want to end up like those guys who meet up for a coffee and spend two thirds of their time watching their smartphones. I don't feel sorry for them, I think they're hooked to the damn thing as I could easily get hooked if I had one. So to relieve me from the temptation of checking it every other minute I simply don't have one. Problem solved. As always, YMMV.

Dumbphones can have flashlight, alarms and mp3/radio too, mine does.

I had a 'dumbphone' before. But my phone now is much easier to use. The ui is big and clear.

My contacts are synced automatically and i can read news on it.

I'm not forcing people into using a smartphone and i don't have any issues with how i use it.

Disabling notifications, both on my phone and on my laptop, was one of the best things I ever did, hands down.

For the laptop, I've experimented with logging out of most social networks with some good results.

I block out an hour every day or so for email and the like, and during that time, I'll re-log-in to Facebook. But outside of that, I stay logged-out, and 2FA helps by making the login process even less convenient.

Messenger and Twitter do get re-enabled when I'm at a conference or need to coordinate with people via those channels, but otherwise, it's just another cognitive burden and potential source of bees-in-head.

When I'm at home, I also leave my phone in the charger in the bedroom. Out of sight really has been out of mind.

Oh, and no phone in the bathroom has been a very good rule as well, in terms of breaking bad habits.

important enough that I have saved it

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11762946

"I think of different communication media as having different urgencies / time constants. Emails are a daily report. My phone's notifications are an hourly report. Notifications which I forward to my watch are the instant things. Be sure to mercilessly "mute" most apps from bugging you on your wrist. With this setup, I never feel the urge to check my phone. If there is something important, it would've buzzed my wrist."

Totally agree with turning off Notifications. People, who complained about busy their life, seeking solace from technology, the updates/alerts, et al. have asked for tips or tricks. I told them to disable all notifications. Many are surprised, some feels that I'm turning into a savage, while some got angry.

Anything that asked for permission for notifications, alerts, just do not allow them. That should solve most of the problems.

I wrote an article about it long back (2014) and people really seem to like it [personal plug] - http://brajeshwar.com/2014/missing-step-productivity-activit...

I've have the opposite. I've stopped using my laptop at home. Since I find my phone more annoying to use, I don't use it as much.

Totally agree with turning off all notifications on the phone. This simply makes the phone experience so much better. Knowing you only reach for it when you need it, instead of getting dragged into checking other things while already looking at the screen due to the notification, really calms one down.

I still have an iPhone, but I'm (by choice) on a contract that has 500Mb of data per month and then a very expensive per Gb cost after that. Being aware of what percentage of my 500Mb I've used makes me very careful about wasting time on the phone. Works well for me and keeps me productive.

For me, the solutions are bookmarks. I keep a folder "Daily". Several times a day, I open all bookmarks inside that folder and go through the opened tabs one by one. Moreover, I unsubscribed from any kind of impersonal email.

Similar for my phone. I have vibration turned off for all apps, and most limited to just 'badges' for me to check when I want. I feel more relax; it's a better way to live.