I have not found it to be overly burdensome. I have an indestructible kyocera flip phone, so I'm able to call people (and SMS in a pinch).
I have an LTE-enabled tablet, so if I'm going somewhere totally unfamiliar, I'll throw it in my bag just in case I need to look up some information. Otherwise you just have to plan your outings in advance - like we always did prior to 2008 or so.
I have a Garmin GPS mounted in car for road trips, which I honestly prefer since it doesn't tempt me to fiddle with it while driving like a smartphone does. I also carry a semi-nice digital camera sometimes. It's obviously not as convenient as a smartphone camera, but I find I am more thoughtful and appreciative of the photos I take as a result.
I use more paper items (small paper notebook for grocery lists, transit tickets instead of using the app, etc). This can be somewhat freeing, as I've missed my ferry a handful of times because their app glitched out.
My personality tends towards obsession and analysis paralysis, which can be good for programming but sometimes bad for real life. I no longer obsess over which restaurant has the best looking pictures or online reviews, I just walk inside and try it out. Sometimes this is for the better, sometimes for the worse, but it's definitely a more human experience.
Without the smartphone, I also find I am much more inclined to talk to random strangers, since I can't just whip out the phone during awkward silent moments.
With lack of FOMO, I am also much more present with family and friends, which is probably the biggest benefit.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I will have to seriously give this some more thought. I saw somewhere else you mentioned you did it as an experiment at first - I think if I do it I will pursue a similar approach.
I appreciate that you mentioned you still have the LTE tablet - one of my biggest concerns was traveling and the HUGE convenience apps have on my life then.
I haven't gone all the way and actually gotten rid of my phone, but I personally operate in three "modes:"
- Mode 1 where I'm going to need it for a task like navigation, or I'm OK with killing time and letting my mind wander. I keep it near me, always silent/no vibrate, and check it fairly often.
- Mode 2 where there's a remote chance I may need it because I might need to take a phone call or deal with an OTP. It sits out of sight, preferably in another room entirely.
- Mode 3, the phone is physically powered off. This is pretty much always the case after 8pm, it's frequently the case when I'm working, sometimes the case when I'm out with friends.
In practice I'm almost always in Mode 1 or Mode 3. I accept that it's OK/necessary to submit to distractions (though I do keep it on silent), or I just say screw it and turn it off.
In my experience if you develop a habit like always just powering it off after 8pm, after a few weeks the phone starts to lose its hold on you. You start having moments during the day where you're fiddling with it and your brain just goes "screw this, I would rather be relaxed, happy, and living life." That's the moment where Google, Apple etc. have lost the war they're waging against you, your brain is no longer hijacked, and it all gets better from there.
Gym? Just the gym, no music. Walking? The same, enjoying my surrounding. I quit music streaming (tried Amazon, Google) after some trials and concentrate on a selection of music, which I can listen to again and again. I do use a tablet with a 256GB SD card, so have space to store a variety of things.
While my musical taste is eclectic (i.e. from classic over techno to glitch) I mostly prefer to either listen to music or do other things, instead of mixing those activities. I do listen to music on commutes, and sometimes while doing certain chores in the kitchen though. But otherwise either or, not both.
I've started leaving my phone out of my gym time as well. It feels like the right thing to do, but it definitely feels odd or like I'm different somehow. At the gym I go to everyone listens to music while lifting and it's almost surreal to look around while resting between sets to see everyone is dialed into their own little world.
I wonder what gyms looked like in earlier generations (I'm only 27). Did people talk more?
Gyms were well-known social hubs. You'd meet people, sometimes even work out business deals, at the gym.
The isolation that technology has brought us has reduced the number of serendipitous human connections we used to make as a species. It has also turned us into an us-verus-them society because we no longer have large circles of friends with varying opinions.
Latter seasons of Highlander tell me they were mostly for people to test their rivals out before a final confrontation in another part of the city in the final act.
>The biggest switch for me would be losing music streaming. What do you use for music on-the-go (at the gym, commuting, walking around, etc.)?
I gave that up too, replaced with live music venues where I could interact with the musicians.
Although depending on the venue musicians and even patrons will occasionally be wearing hearing protection earbuds for isolation.
Without earbuds it can only be better for personal interaction at the gym, etc. too.
When the Sony Walkman came out, those who took it to the gym were more keenly aware they were signaling that they didn't want any interaction there.
Solo commuting I'm just fine with news & talk now. Driving passengers or being one I can better appreciate anybody's channel selction. Nonmusic is too boring for most people anyway.
I get plenty of live music and that's all I really need.
If you already have to be on a computer a bit to begin with, might as well make the most of it.
When you do close the laptop and revert to normal in-person interaction, you can always walk away from the PC with mere cellular voice, if you really need that, for the duration.
Twenty years ago smartphones didn't have touchscreens. But they would take messages.
When that was the only thing you were carrying around, all you could really do was talk & text like anyone else.
But when you had your laptop, the built-in IR or USB interface to a top smart phone was what made it smart to begin with.
As a virtual COM port device, the analog modem in your phone was then accessible to Windows no differently than the analog hardware modem the laptop used when hardwired to a phone jack having a dial tone.
Even laptops without built in modems back then still had hardware COM port connectors just like desktops, which could be used with external hardwired phone modems (or used for local hardwired RS-232/TTY within the generous cable length limitation without need for modulation/demodulation).
But the cellphone was about twice the speeds the office was getting with 56K hardware modems.
From anywhere you could get a cellular signal.
This was years before each cellular company began to slowly roll out data plans as the phones got _smarter_.
Which were geographically limited ridiculously by comparison for many more years before data coverage got to where it is today.
Anyway you could get to your office network directly by dialing in to (one of) your target server's phone number(s) (and tying up that landline as long as you are connected).
Without having to go on the internet, so security could be through the roof by comparison.
Alternatively you could dial in to any ISP's phone bank when you needed to get on the web.
This could even be simply done routinely from a different Windows partition, physically separating personal from business for instance.
Would that make it a sandcastle compared to a sandbox?
Even with only a common single bootvolume you could connect to two networks at the same time using two modems, using the built-in Dial-Up Networking in Windows 98. You could become a bridge this way and security could be not so good.
You just pointed & clicked your selection(s) and they negotiated or autodialed if necessary.
So many offices had internet that you would almost always be fine to just dial in to that one place, and with more than one modem using more than one phone line W98 could be configured to communicate much faster than 56K using modem sharing.
And with a laptop you had all the power and software for business & internet connection you needed without having to wait for phones to get more powerful on their own.
With progress phones are much more popular & stylish now.
Posing with a touchphone, one-handed at a characteristic near-45 degree angle as an interested observer, recognizable in silhouette, whether standing (walking) or sitting, is not something that was ever seen in the 20th century.
Likewise the accompanying silhouette with the other hand on the touchscreen as an active operator.
Under laboratory conditions over a period of years, redirecting time otherwise spent in either pose toward actual scientific progress can have much more ideal outcomes when it comes to milestone accomplishments.
Anectdotal data, YMMV.
I do get the idea that more traditional poses such as yoga-style might be more preferable to a great many.
Rumour has it your cognitive capacity can be increased.
The price on this absolutely blows me away. It would be far more cost effective to buy a cheap android, download spotify/tidal/etc. via wifi, and sync all playlists offline.
I remember seeing someone link a $40 player recently-ish in a HN thread (I don't feel like searching but I think the context was hiking if you want to try and find it). Agreed that price is outrageous but they're not all like that.
Thanks for your great response. I’ve often considered doing something like this.
I wonder if there is a way to accomplish many of these things while still carrying your phone? For example, what if your phone took 5 minutes to unlock? And didn’t give notifications until you unlocked it?
I put my phone in "do not disturb" mode for the entire day. Removing notifications altogether was a great improvement, without getting rid of the phone altogether. You go from responding to picking it up when you decide to.
As someone who has been doing the DND mode for over 8 years now to avoid expecting notifications, it instead has taught me to reach over to my phone every 30 seconds to check the screen for any new ones :(
i've started to just chuck it somewhere if I'm trying to focus
I go through and explicitly disable notifications for almost every app. I don't really need to be interrupted to find out someone liked a photo, or that there's something in the news, or that it's raining, or that some new shit shipped from eBay. So even if I do check my phone, I pretty much only have (and then only silent) notifications for messengers. My wife and close friends know that if they need to get me immediately that they can send me a real SMS.
When I got a new phone about 6 months ago, I spent about a week horrified by the number of notifications that I was getting by default.
Same. I wanted to minimize use. The only apps that "speak" are: phone, messaging, Skype. The group chats are muted, and I also disabled the auto-refresh of emails. Now unless someone is sending a message just to me, or calls me, the phone stays silent. All other apps (gym, etc) have notifications off completely.
That, and keeping the charger in a remote corner, helps to park it and forget it.
Don't DND, use airplane mode (if you want antitheft or incoming calls, disable cellular data and wifi--prey and other antitheft can toggle data by text message if necessary). This way you've still got it available for manual use when necessary, without the wait to turn it on.
Also, disable face/fingerprint/pin unlock, and use a longish password, so unlocking it isn't convenient.
My OnePlus (not sure how widespread the feature is on android) has a Zen Mode, once started you can't use the phone for most things until the timer elapses.
1) The majority of people disable the feature after a short time (if they needed it in the first place, it's hard to maintain the self-control to keep it enabled, when it's presumably trivial to disable), and
2) Whether the cognitive effects remain, even when it's locked, because the mere presence of the phone makes you think about it, and it being locked makes you think about what you're missing.
My personal experience on this is like the article above states, merely having my phone on hand caused me to think about pulling it out or looking at it even if it was turned off. It was not till I hid my phone away in my glove box or somewhere I rarely accessed did I feel truly free from it. I will say having done this for months now I really don't miss it and only go grab it when I absolutely need it (usually for work stuff). The result is that I feel much less distracted and more focused on my life as it happens, also my view of the world seem more grounded in reality now.
I have a way to do this: I have a smartphone without an unlimited data plan. I can use it out of the home for calls, texts, notes, photos, music, and cached maps, without being tempted to surf the web or whatever. If I need a map or a web browser urgently, I can still use data, but I pay a relatively high rate for it. I call this a "self-imposed vice tax".
Of course, on wifi, it can do everything that phone with a normal data plan can do. I just don't bother, because most of the time I'm on wifi, I have a laptop available. Especially these days.
Besides the DND features of the OS, I use the Macrodroid app on Android to silence my mobile based on location and time. For example my devices will turn off WiFi, dial down audio levels and brightness at a certain time in the evening, even while I might use it. This is a cue for me to put it aside if I still might access it.
Also, based on location, I automatically disable all notifications while at the gym or in a restaurant. If a had an urge to access it anyways, I might set the brightness to zero too.
This can be done with Tasker. It's the most advanced phone app for automation. I believe it would be simple to make a task showing a screen that cannot be dismissed whenever the phone is unlocked.
I have an LTE-enabled tablet, so if I'm going somewhere totally unfamiliar, I'll throw it in my bag just in case I need to look up some information. Otherwise you just have to plan your outings in advance - like we always did prior to 2008 or so.
I have a Garmin GPS mounted in car for road trips, which I honestly prefer since it doesn't tempt me to fiddle with it while driving like a smartphone does. I also carry a semi-nice digital camera sometimes. It's obviously not as convenient as a smartphone camera, but I find I am more thoughtful and appreciative of the photos I take as a result.
I use more paper items (small paper notebook for grocery lists, transit tickets instead of using the app, etc). This can be somewhat freeing, as I've missed my ferry a handful of times because their app glitched out.
My personality tends towards obsession and analysis paralysis, which can be good for programming but sometimes bad for real life. I no longer obsess over which restaurant has the best looking pictures or online reviews, I just walk inside and try it out. Sometimes this is for the better, sometimes for the worse, but it's definitely a more human experience.
Without the smartphone, I also find I am much more inclined to talk to random strangers, since I can't just whip out the phone during awkward silent moments.
With lack of FOMO, I am also much more present with family and friends, which is probably the biggest benefit.