Cell-Phone Free Living?

[Salathor]

About six months ago I downgraded from a smart phone back to a flip phone, and I've loved the impact it's had on my life. I still spend too much time on the computer, but at least the times I'm NOT on the computer mean that I'm not on the computer.

But now I'm considering taking it a step further. Have you (or do you know anyone) who's gone the extra step and gotten rid of a cell phone entirely?

[ertyu]

You'd be giving up msgs from the bank that there's been a withdrawal to your account, 2FA, the ability to sign up for many email etc clients and apps which increasingly require a cell number ...

A flip-phone is the ideal middle ground imo.

[jacob]

But now I'm considering taking it a step further. Have you (or do you know anyone) who's gone the extra step and gotten rid of a cell phone entirely?

Famously: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/day-4 ... e-pla.html

The workaround is to do your important calls at work presuming it comes with a phone. For many years I relied on DW's phone to make approximately 1 phone call per year. There is an increasing number of alternatives. Zoom for calls and chat for tech support. OTOH, 2FA increasingly requires a smart-phone. In advanced countries, everything is practically online-only. For example, you can't buy a bus ticket without a phone; all mail is delivered electronically, ... This makes it extremely inconvenient to live without a smartphone.

After many years and more than one person donating their old smartphone to me, I finally bought an actual plan after someone on the forum suggested it. Red Pocket at $2.50 per month. I can live with that. This gives me access to 2FA and pokemon go, which are the only two things I use it for. Nobody has my number except DW and my emergency contact; DW still acts as my point of contact being much better on a phone than I am.

This also suggests that a dumb-phone would be meaningless for me. When I worked in finance, owning a phone was mandatory. However, with my usage pattern, all I ever did with it was to receive spam calls. (The smartphone is set up to not notify me when someone calls. Apparently, spam eats up 20-40 minutes per month. This is ridiculous.)

[chenda]

Banking is pretty much impossible now without a banking app. Lots of regional banks have closed down (the physical branches) and even desktop sites require validation via an app.

[mathiverse]

"Impossible" is too strong a word. Challenging and inconvenient works better. It may depend on where you live. In the US (maybe it's really different in Europe, idk), the bigger the city, the more options you have. There are many people who still have access to in person bank branches on this forum. Many 2FA systems give one the option to get a phone call. Some banks still don't require 2FA. Alternatives for using a bank smartphone app exist since most (all?) banks have a website you can visit on a computer.

[unemployable]

A Google Voice phone number is free and lets you receive texts, and I use mine for 2fa all the time. You do have to make an outgoing call or text every three months to keep the number.

[loutfard]

Do know that most of the 2fa "android or ios apps" are just bog standard TOTP token generators. As long as you have the secret seed qr code or the data embedded in it, you can perfectly use any compatible desktop app to generate the one time password. On Linux for example, otpclient is a nice one. If you do things right, this is also safer.

[Western Red Cedar]

But now I'm considering taking it a step further. Have you (or do you know anyone) who's gone the extra step and gotten rid of a cell phone entirely?

You could try just putting your phone in a drawer for a few weeks, or a few months, as an experiment and see how things go.

I avoided acquiring a cell phone until around 2010/2011. There were certainly benefits, but also inconveniences and as time went by I relied more on other people's phones.

Currently, I see it as a pretty valuable tool that makes my life better. I have a lot of control over how I use that tool.

[AxelHeyst]

You could try just putting your phone in a drawer for a few weeks, or a few months, as an experiment and see how things go.

I'm down to give this a go. Let's do it Salathor. Anyone else in?

[Salathor]

I might be! I have to think of some solutions to some problems first. I have a mandatory 2FA I have to use for my new job several times a day that I'm currently receiving via text. Maybe a middle ground is to leave it on my desk, but turned on--more like a classic desk phone?

[Salathor]

Well, I'm already app free, since I only have a flip phone. But I do need text message capability for those text 2fas!

[ducknald_don]

Currently, I see it as a pretty valuable tool that makes my life better. I have a lot of control over how I use that tool.

Same here. The list of things I use it for is quite long now. But I don't visit Twitter/Facebook/Reddit etc.

[AxelHeyst]

I've turned it off and stuck it somewhere inconvenient. I'll use it when I can't figure out how not to (e.g. 2fa, although with my gvoice number I take care of most of my 2fa on my computer) and note those instances.

Main thing I'm noodling on is the camera. I take pictures often to document my builds and hikes. I might de-app it so I can use it for pictures only, but otherwise keep it stashed and off.

[Western Red Cedar]

Main thing I'm noodling on is the camera. I take pictures often to document my builds and hikes. I might de-app it so I can use it for pictures only, but otherwise keep it stashed and off.

Other options for people who want to join aside from de-apping are to put it on airplane mode for most of the day, or put it on airplane mode and keep it turned off. It seems like having a clear purpose for going phone-free, or identifying the main problems the phone is causing, is helpful.

-----

I was recently backpacking off grid with family for a few days and kept my phone on airplane mode. I was able to use the compass, flashlight, music at night in my tent, ascertain accurate elevation levels at various points on the hike, use the camera, and use the videocamera. I also regularly consulted with a photo of the trail map so I didn't always need to break out the paper map. On the ride to and from the trailhead I was able to get accurate weather forecasts, use GPS, and check on wildfire activity in the area.

I could have used other features like the LiDAR scanner (if I bothered to learn how to use it prior to the trip), an app to help me identify flora I'm not familiar with, or even replace my notebook and book with a digital book and notes app (I'm still somewhat old fashioned and romantic though ).

I just mention this because it didn't really make me less present for the majority of the trip, and allowed me to travel lighter while adding value. I used to be anti-smart phone, but I've come to realize that it is just another tool.

[AxelHeyst]

Yeah there's a danger in being reactionarily anti-smartphone just because e.g. Paul Kingsnorth's technology burns are epic.

Smartphones are just tools, very swiss-army-knife like. As will all tools, it best to begin with a vision of what kinds of experiences you want to have. Then, you evaluate the tool for what kinds of experiences it is appropriate for, and which it is not, and what 'side effects' go along with it.

For example, I might have a vision of going into a forest to chop down a tree for firewood. A chainsaw is just a tool. So is an axe. A chainsaw will empower me to cut the tree down much faster than if I use the axe, but it is heavier, has more moving parts, requires gasoline and oil, and is loud. There isn't a right answer to which tool is best. If I'm going into the forest and my vision is to get some alone time in nature and have a semi spiritual experience, for me, the axe is the right choice. If a storm is coming and I'm out of wood and if I don't get biomass in right quick I'm in danger of freezing to death in my little cabin, I'd be a fool to take the axe.

For me, smartphones are an unstably balanced tool. By that I mean I have the experience over and over again of setting up some rules and intentions for how I'm going to use the value-add functions of the phone, and in a month or two I find myself using it in ways I don't like. The Axel:smartphone system has an attractor at an x,y I disprefer for values of interaction frequencies above some threshold 'a'. In order for the Axel:smartphone system to converge on the other attractor, an x,y I'm okay with, my interaction frequency has to be below threshold 'a'. This threshold is quite low. I leave a lot of genuine value the smartphone can provide on the table by such a low level of use. I tend to cycle between the two attractors depending on mood, what I'm doing, what my current vision for my lifestyle is, how long I've recently spent in which attractor, etc.

I used my phone on my bike trip much the way you described on your recent backpacking trip. It was nice to have those functions, especially on my first real bike trip. I think on my next trip I won't use the phone, or I'll bring it but take a serious crack at not using it unless I get in a jam.

[Slevin]

Do not Disturb, Blocksite, and removing apps you don't want to use mindlessly are the protips here IMO. Cultivate the positive environment / relationship you want to have with it.

Throwing out the phone because sometimes you use it to distract yourself is like chopping off your hand because it keeps pulling the candy you bought out of the pantry and putting it in your mouth. Having a hand wasn't the problem, it just happens to be a very efficient candy delivery system (the comparison breaks down a bit because the timesink apps are often preinstalled on the phone. You can still delete them though).

[AxelHeyst]

This guy de-appified his phone for 30 days and wrote about it: https://www.raptitude.com/experiment-no ... -of-a-toy/

This is the salient take-away for me:

The original goal was to make my phone into a utilitarian multi-tool, so that I pick it up when I want to use it to accomplish something (look up directions, send an email), and not for entertainment or self-stimulation. I don’t think I quite accomplished that.

The main problem is that there’s no fine line between those two modes of using the phone. For example, one utilitarian use of my phone is to map and track my runs. So I do. But I also enjoy looking at the running data — the distances and times and the graphs it shows of them. I might look at that even when I don’t need to, and I know it is the pleasure-seeking regions of my brain that’s behind that. I also need to check email for utilitarian reasons, but there is also some gratification involved in that. I also kept podcast and PDF-reading apps, so there was always some audio or reading “fun” to be had if I wanted it.

What I’m saying is that it’s probably impossible to surgically cut out the gratifying aspects of the phone. And of course it is. Even before there were phones, there was something fun about going down the driveway to get the mail. It’s intrinsically interesting. It’s just that the mail came once a day and required physical activity to check it, so nobody was checking it fifty times a day. Even though I was mostly picking up the phone with a utilitarian purpose, I noticed that every time I was engaged with the phone, there was still a strong impulse to find some sort of reward after that, even if it’s just the mild thrill of checking email.

It matches my experience, but because of how I've got my life set up, smartphone use feels like it doesn't bring a whole lot of value to me whereas I understand it does for others. So I'm just going to have a go at not using it and see what the experience is like. That's the other nice thing about how I've got things set up... it's easy to do low-stakes experiments instead of thinking myself in circles about them.

[Slevin]

I read that same post as a massive success, finding and eliminating a huge swath of the thing he defined as problematic behavior (which he attributes to Youtube). He points out he didn't make his phone strictly utilitarian, but I also don't think phones are a thing that *should* be strictly utilitarian. They should be a thing that is can be used for entertainment when you want it to be used that way. And it seems he made it closer to that.

But I do agree, if you don't get much value in the first place, yeah who cares.

[Western Red Cedar]

I went camping with a large group of friends last weekend. This was the first time this site had cell phone coverage. Some of the group preferred being completely off grid because it was too challenging to avoid their phones when they had service. A big part of it was the desire to be completely disconnected from work emails.

It was a bit surprising to see how difficult it was for others to shut off their phone or turn it on airplane mode. Even when they wanted to be present and didn't really want service. I think part of the reason I don't struggle as much as others is that I'm hesitant to download any apps on my phone. I love YouTube, but have never had the app on my phone. Never had reddit, twitter, facebook, instagram, tik tok, or any social media.

I still find myself mindlessly looking at my phone throughout the day, but the association is probably weaker because I've limited the potential for quick dopamine hits, and the behavioral patterns that result from that.

[AxelHeyst]

I really liked this paragraph from an article on tech-free residence halls:

The Amish, contrary to popular perception, are not “anti-tech.” To think like the Amish is not to reject some abstract thing called “technology,” but rather to emphasize and to grapple seriously with questions that technology always raises “behind our backs,” so to speak. ... If the Amish are “radical,” it is not because of the specific decisions they make about what technologies they will and will not use, but because they actually make decisions, rather than allowing the decision to be made for them by something called “progress.”

Emphases mine