I have a smartphone, but I never turn on mobile data unless I want to look something up and turn it off straight after.
I don’t understand what people are doing on their phones? The major advantage of a smartphone is the camera, and the apps – none of which require an internet connection to use.
> Ms Cowling, who is a creative director at London-based advertising agency Hell Yeah!
I find it hard to believe that someone in that kind of job can function in this day and age without email, WhatsApp or whatever on-hand.
>She recalls that one of the pivotal moments that led to her decision was a day at the park with her two boys, aged six and three: “I was on my mobile at a playground with the kids and I looked up and every single parent – there was up to 20 – were looking at their phones, just scrolling away,” she says.
People shouldn’t need to ditch their smartphones to realise they don’t have to spend everything single minute on it. There’s no need to go from one extreme to the other.
I’ll never get the “phones = bad” brigade.
In 2022 almost all of us have an extremely powerful tool in our pockets and some people really think its a strange look seeing many people using it to while away their work commute (in which they’re likely checking work emails before their shift starts anyway) or a 2 hour train journey?
Even going as far as to say people are “phone zombies” and similar hyperbole?
Nah.
Going from the controlled social environment of electronic communication to the more free and open social environment of talking to people to their faces is quite a startling experience, yes.
If you’re a social shut in, that is.
Meh I’ve tried but it’s impossible in this day and age. I still need stuff like online banking and maps to function in society. I think stuff like that are positives. Annoyingly the entire world seems to want to use WhatsApp too.
I think the balance is somewhere in the middle – ditch the addictive apps like Twitter and Instagram and keep it minimal only with what you need.
I’m definitely better off with a minimal phone rather than no phone.
I don’t think ditching the smart phone is being a Neo Luddite as one poster mentions.
It is about taking back some control of your life. She is right – go to a restaurant and or pub and see all the folks engaged in zombiefication. It is melting brains: not from microwaves, but just by having free agency removed and pandering to the monkey brain.
I know this will get down voted to oblivion. I use a lap top for my communication – but it seems more manageable than having the thing in your hands all the time. I am not a Luddite: I use technology all the time. I just reckon I’m better off on the low toxicity computer=function model rather than the crack cocaine smartphone=obsessive behaviour.
Deal with the addiction don’t ditch the device. Its a tool with the functionality of a bag of technology. A torch and google maps and camera alone are so worth having.
The first one just seems to want to be different as a conversation starter about how different and outside the norm she is. She’s also just managed to get her company some BBC news exposure.
I used nothing but google maps to drive around italy for two weeks, imagine the map and atlas work id have had to do without it, or buy a satnav… ive googled restaurant discount codes outside restaurants, fixed a leaky toilet or cooked a meal by following a video. I’ve watched lecture series for free and done freelance work via google docs in the bath… not to mention the libraries of books and audiobooks I have access to at all times. And the # of books ive read has been so much higher.
Its a tool, how you use it is the problem. Never before have been able to access learning and information so freely.
Social media and binge watching are the problems or other addictions.
I’m a tech guy. But when the iPhone and first Android phones came out I was in no rush to get a smartphone. They were expensive and, much as I like the internet, I didn’t see the need to carry it around in my pocket.
The years went by and I stuck to my old Nokia candy bar phone. Come 2018 and it seemed that everyone apart from me owned a smartphone. I used to look at people staring at their phone screens and wonder what could possibly be so important that they needed to deal with it while away from home or the office. But then I purchased a security camera and needed a smartphone to operate it, so I bought a cheap model – £149 on sale.
And now I’m an convert – three and half years later I wouldn’t want to be without it. In the 10 years or so since smartphones had first launched there was intense hardware and software development which meant that my cheap phone is an incredibly powerful computing device.
I think the key to healthy use is to turn off nearly all notifications (especially MS Teams) and to set ‘do not disturb’ when not working.
Our smartphones are essentially an extension of our frontal cortex and, if you subscribe to the thinking of Ray Kurzweil, we’ll only become more connected to the collective intelligence over time.
It’ll be interesting to see how we manage to balance the need for pure human experience with the need to stay relevant in an increasingly connected society.
My little old nan almost flat-out refuses to move with the times. She has zero interest in the internet. I wonder what her experience is like. She gets up, does some knitting, watches a cute sit-com, has dinner at 6pm and falls asleep on the sofa. She seems happy, but she has no idea what’s going on in the world around her (physically and digitally).
I can almost relate though. I’m a 33yo software engineer (so I like to think I’m staying up to date) but the younger generations are starting to become a little alien to me. (Snapchat, culture, fashion etc).
I’m even starting to drop some “back in my day”s.
I remember life before smartphones and there is no doubt in my mind that is was a better place.
Yes, sometimes, waiting in a chair at the doctor’s office for instance, you would be slightly bored. But that was an important time: you used it to pause and reflect. It was much more valuable than scrolling through shitposts.
Or sometimes you would actually, you know, take interest in the other people there. This again was important: it gave a sense of social solidarity. The strangers were not like some distant, alien, probably hostile tribe as people always seem to assume today. Neighbours felt like neighbours.
The smartphones allow you to access knowledge more rapidly than ever, which has its uses for sure. But people have got so used to having the answers, that they have forgotten the questions. Millennials blindly trust that everything will be handled by mythical “experts” and they think that an argument can be settled by Googling for “studies” loosely related to the topic under discussion and then spamming links. This is such a perverse and low level discussion that it more closely resembles the superstition and scholasticism of the Dark Ages than the mindset of the Scientific Age which encourages a spirit of rational free inquiry.
At the end of the day you have to ask what you actually WANT in life. Is it to get through as much anime as possible as fast as possible? Is it to be constantly hooked in to social media? Or is it better to have a slower, more balanced, organic life, where you can’t always find the TV show you’re looking for, but questions and the mystery are what get you through and gives you purpose, and the need to depend on other humans for their knowledge gives you a common ground with them.
I would ditch my smartphone if it wasn’t for GPS and music.
I don’t need to do work on the go, check my emails etc… But I do need to listen to music, and occasionally I need to use the maps function to find places.
Back in the day I’d always carry an A-Z, and my MP3 player with me. But now it’s just one phone. And I’m not addicted to it. My smartphone is not the problem. My iPad, however, is what I spend the most time on!
This going to be all the neo-luddites circle jerking because hating convenience is somehow a personality trait
I lost my phone early at Glastonbury a few years ago, replaced it with a cheap Doro that was meant to be temporary and kept it for about a year! I just checked what’s app/messenger/etc on my laptop every other day and it was so nice! All my important friends and family had my number to call or text, and I didn’t have the social pressure of constantly being available and/or taking photos all the time! Unfortunately I need a smartphone for my job now or I would be tempted to give it up again. All my notifications are turned off for everything other than calls and texts though, which makes a huge difference in being able to zone out if I put my phone down to unwind.
Am I the only one who thinks it doesn’t actually count for anything unless you ditch *all* technology?
Its not so much ditching smart phones, its more like turning the phone back into a phone for calls and the occasional text, take away social media apps and thats what a phone is.
I have a smart phone and it is a useful tool I wouldn’t be without. I don’t have Faceache, Twatter, Instawank, Whatsapp or any of that other shite installed.
I use it for smart home apps, maps, sat nav, texts, phonecalls, shopping apps, contactless payments, music, podcasts, lists, email and car parking apps. It is a tool, nothing more.
I’m off WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram fully so that’s my equivalent
I’m 36, work for a digital native company, fully remote. Not had a smart phone or tablet in about 4 years. No mobile phone or house phone (technically there is a house phone line but it’s disconnected).
I use an emulator on my laptop for Whatsapp and Google Authenticator. I do a lot of international calling so I’ve got Skype Global which costs about 12 quid a month for unlimited calls to most countries (paid for by my job). I use it occasionally to call friends and family.
That’s it. When I’m not at my laptop no one can find me. Period. One of the reasons i decided to keep with it is because I had a baby in 2020, she’s now almost 2, and she’s the one getting bored of me, which I see as a win. When she starts school I’ll probably go and get a phone because I’ll have so much more time to waste inside a screen.
I haven’t travelled since COVID though so I might need to get a tablet when I decide to get back on a plane, but would rather have a tablet than phone. AMA on this thread, no DMs coz I don’t read them.
I would love a phone that only did phone calls, text messages and had a great camera. Nothing else
What if I told you you could ditch your smartphone without telling everyone about it.
This is the equivalent of someone posting on Facebook that they’re deleting Facebook. Nobody cares. And when you delete it nobody will see the message either.
I work from home, my partner is a key worker who works long hours. Sometimes go days without talking to people at work and when I do it’s purely business anyway. I have the willpower to remove my smartphone from life (or at least the time sink apps like this one) but I never see a route to doing this that doesn’t compound the social isolation.
What keeps me going is my two group chats with my friends across the UK, we talk about music and we share memes and we make plans to see each other. Am I weak for being addicted to my social relationships?
Smart phones are addictive, they are designed to take our attention and like drugs, it’s not a matter of “cutting down” but stopping. I don’t think people can function without phones, and it is going to be hard to ignore the device in your pocket …
Most phones can separate work and private apps. Work apps get turned off after close of business, and the private apps are on no disturb. Otherwise, I find smartphones absolutely unbearable, worse than Tamagotchis – constantly vibrating needily.
I can see both sides of the argument but there’s no denying phones have affected our sense of togetherness. Loneliness and depression seem to be higher than ever. I saw some footage from the tornado in the US a few months back and they were filming inside a shelter that was full of people. They were all on their phones. Fair enough probably letting family know they are ok, or just bored. But I had recently watched a documentary about a similar natural disaster in the 90s, plus that Malcolm in the Middle episode where they all have to shelter in some gymnasium. People were chatting to one another. There just seemed to be some sort of kinship among these people who had found themselves bunched up together. Teenagers meeting each other and making new friends. Does that happen anymore, if you go on holiday? Or does everyone keep to themselves and their phones? The last big family get together I had a few years ago, most people kept checking their phones. They weren’t present in the moment and now we’ve not been able to see each other for over 2 years. The same goes if you watch films from <90s where people get buses or trains together. We used to see and talk to each other. I love chatting to friends even when we are not physically together, but I can’t help but feel like some sense of community has been lost. How many of us know our neighbours? You might but it’s definitely a resounding “fewer than before”.
Oh piss off you smug little wankers. You have a fucking computer in your hand and you are looking all smug like “no fone, i read book” like you are smart. You’re not smarter than everyone else because you don’t have a phone on you right now, you’re just smug pseudointelectual who thinks phones make you dumb.
> She plans to use the time gained from quitting her smartphone to read and sleep more.
I’ve done more reading with the Kindle app on my phone in the last five years than I did from real books in the previous ten.
I have a friend that did this and I totally respect not wanting to use social media or be always on your phone, but MFer doesn’t have a landline or anything and barely checks his emails so it’s nigh impossible to make plans with the guy, I’m thinking imma have to write letters like it’s 1800 lol
28 comments
I have a smartphone, but I never turn on mobile data unless I want to look something up and turn it off straight after.
I don’t understand what people are doing on their phones? The major advantage of a smartphone is the camera, and the apps – none of which require an internet connection to use.
> Ms Cowling, who is a creative director at London-based advertising agency Hell Yeah!
I find it hard to believe that someone in that kind of job can function in this day and age without email, WhatsApp or whatever on-hand.
>She recalls that one of the pivotal moments that led to her decision was a day at the park with her two boys, aged six and three: “I was on my mobile at a playground with the kids and I looked up and every single parent – there was up to 20 – were looking at their phones, just scrolling away,” she says.
People shouldn’t need to ditch their smartphones to realise they don’t have to spend everything single minute on it. There’s no need to go from one extreme to the other.
I’ll never get the “phones = bad” brigade.
In 2022 almost all of us have an extremely powerful tool in our pockets and some people really think its a strange look seeing many people using it to while away their work commute (in which they’re likely checking work emails before their shift starts anyway) or a 2 hour train journey?
Even going as far as to say people are “phone zombies” and similar hyperbole?
Nah.
Going from the controlled social environment of electronic communication to the more free and open social environment of talking to people to their faces is quite a startling experience, yes.
If you’re a social shut in, that is.
Meh I’ve tried but it’s impossible in this day and age. I still need stuff like online banking and maps to function in society. I think stuff like that are positives. Annoyingly the entire world seems to want to use WhatsApp too.
I think the balance is somewhere in the middle – ditch the addictive apps like Twitter and Instagram and keep it minimal only with what you need.
I’m definitely better off with a minimal phone rather than no phone.
I don’t think ditching the smart phone is being a Neo Luddite as one poster mentions.
It is about taking back some control of your life. She is right – go to a restaurant and or pub and see all the folks engaged in zombiefication. It is melting brains: not from microwaves, but just by having free agency removed and pandering to the monkey brain.
I know this will get down voted to oblivion. I use a lap top for my communication – but it seems more manageable than having the thing in your hands all the time. I am not a Luddite: I use technology all the time. I just reckon I’m better off on the low toxicity computer=function model rather than the crack cocaine smartphone=obsessive behaviour.
Deal with the addiction don’t ditch the device. Its a tool with the functionality of a bag of technology. A torch and google maps and camera alone are so worth having.
The first one just seems to want to be different as a conversation starter about how different and outside the norm she is. She’s also just managed to get her company some BBC news exposure.
I used nothing but google maps to drive around italy for two weeks, imagine the map and atlas work id have had to do without it, or buy a satnav… ive googled restaurant discount codes outside restaurants, fixed a leaky toilet or cooked a meal by following a video. I’ve watched lecture series for free and done freelance work via google docs in the bath… not to mention the libraries of books and audiobooks I have access to at all times. And the # of books ive read has been so much higher.
Its a tool, how you use it is the problem. Never before have been able to access learning and information so freely.
Social media and binge watching are the problems or other addictions.
I’m a tech guy. But when the iPhone and first Android phones came out I was in no rush to get a smartphone. They were expensive and, much as I like the internet, I didn’t see the need to carry it around in my pocket.
The years went by and I stuck to my old Nokia candy bar phone. Come 2018 and it seemed that everyone apart from me owned a smartphone. I used to look at people staring at their phone screens and wonder what could possibly be so important that they needed to deal with it while away from home or the office. But then I purchased a security camera and needed a smartphone to operate it, so I bought a cheap model – £149 on sale.
And now I’m an convert – three and half years later I wouldn’t want to be without it. In the 10 years or so since smartphones had first launched there was intense hardware and software development which meant that my cheap phone is an incredibly powerful computing device.
I think the key to healthy use is to turn off nearly all notifications (especially MS Teams) and to set ‘do not disturb’ when not working.
Our smartphones are essentially an extension of our frontal cortex and, if you subscribe to the thinking of Ray Kurzweil, we’ll only become more connected to the collective intelligence over time.
It’ll be interesting to see how we manage to balance the need for pure human experience with the need to stay relevant in an increasingly connected society.
My little old nan almost flat-out refuses to move with the times. She has zero interest in the internet. I wonder what her experience is like. She gets up, does some knitting, watches a cute sit-com, has dinner at 6pm and falls asleep on the sofa. She seems happy, but she has no idea what’s going on in the world around her (physically and digitally).
I can almost relate though. I’m a 33yo software engineer (so I like to think I’m staying up to date) but the younger generations are starting to become a little alien to me. (Snapchat, culture, fashion etc).
I’m even starting to drop some “back in my day”s.
I remember life before smartphones and there is no doubt in my mind that is was a better place.
Yes, sometimes, waiting in a chair at the doctor’s office for instance, you would be slightly bored. But that was an important time: you used it to pause and reflect. It was much more valuable than scrolling through shitposts.
Or sometimes you would actually, you know, take interest in the other people there. This again was important: it gave a sense of social solidarity. The strangers were not like some distant, alien, probably hostile tribe as people always seem to assume today. Neighbours felt like neighbours.
The smartphones allow you to access knowledge more rapidly than ever, which has its uses for sure. But people have got so used to having the answers, that they have forgotten the questions. Millennials blindly trust that everything will be handled by mythical “experts” and they think that an argument can be settled by Googling for “studies” loosely related to the topic under discussion and then spamming links. This is such a perverse and low level discussion that it more closely resembles the superstition and scholasticism of the Dark Ages than the mindset of the Scientific Age which encourages a spirit of rational free inquiry.
At the end of the day you have to ask what you actually WANT in life. Is it to get through as much anime as possible as fast as possible? Is it to be constantly hooked in to social media? Or is it better to have a slower, more balanced, organic life, where you can’t always find the TV show you’re looking for, but questions and the mystery are what get you through and gives you purpose, and the need to depend on other humans for their knowledge gives you a common ground with them.
I would ditch my smartphone if it wasn’t for GPS and music.
I don’t need to do work on the go, check my emails etc… But I do need to listen to music, and occasionally I need to use the maps function to find places.
Back in the day I’d always carry an A-Z, and my MP3 player with me. But now it’s just one phone. And I’m not addicted to it. My smartphone is not the problem. My iPad, however, is what I spend the most time on!
This going to be all the neo-luddites circle jerking because hating convenience is somehow a personality trait
I lost my phone early at Glastonbury a few years ago, replaced it with a cheap Doro that was meant to be temporary and kept it for about a year! I just checked what’s app/messenger/etc on my laptop every other day and it was so nice! All my important friends and family had my number to call or text, and I didn’t have the social pressure of constantly being available and/or taking photos all the time! Unfortunately I need a smartphone for my job now or I would be tempted to give it up again. All my notifications are turned off for everything other than calls and texts though, which makes a huge difference in being able to zone out if I put my phone down to unwind.
Am I the only one who thinks it doesn’t actually count for anything unless you ditch *all* technology?
Its not so much ditching smart phones, its more like turning the phone back into a phone for calls and the occasional text, take away social media apps and thats what a phone is.
I have a smart phone and it is a useful tool I wouldn’t be without. I don’t have Faceache, Twatter, Instawank, Whatsapp or any of that other shite installed.
I use it for smart home apps, maps, sat nav, texts, phonecalls, shopping apps, contactless payments, music, podcasts, lists, email and car parking apps. It is a tool, nothing more.
I’m off WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram fully so that’s my equivalent
I’m 36, work for a digital native company, fully remote. Not had a smart phone or tablet in about 4 years. No mobile phone or house phone (technically there is a house phone line but it’s disconnected).
I use an emulator on my laptop for Whatsapp and Google Authenticator. I do a lot of international calling so I’ve got Skype Global which costs about 12 quid a month for unlimited calls to most countries (paid for by my job). I use it occasionally to call friends and family.
That’s it. When I’m not at my laptop no one can find me. Period. One of the reasons i decided to keep with it is because I had a baby in 2020, she’s now almost 2, and she’s the one getting bored of me, which I see as a win. When she starts school I’ll probably go and get a phone because I’ll have so much more time to waste inside a screen.
I haven’t travelled since COVID though so I might need to get a tablet when I decide to get back on a plane, but would rather have a tablet than phone. AMA on this thread, no DMs coz I don’t read them.
I would love a phone that only did phone calls, text messages and had a great camera. Nothing else
What if I told you you could ditch your smartphone without telling everyone about it.
This is the equivalent of someone posting on Facebook that they’re deleting Facebook. Nobody cares. And when you delete it nobody will see the message either.
I work from home, my partner is a key worker who works long hours. Sometimes go days without talking to people at work and when I do it’s purely business anyway. I have the willpower to remove my smartphone from life (or at least the time sink apps like this one) but I never see a route to doing this that doesn’t compound the social isolation.
What keeps me going is my two group chats with my friends across the UK, we talk about music and we share memes and we make plans to see each other. Am I weak for being addicted to my social relationships?
Smart phones are addictive, they are designed to take our attention and like drugs, it’s not a matter of “cutting down” but stopping. I don’t think people can function without phones, and it is going to be hard to ignore the device in your pocket …
Most phones can separate work and private apps. Work apps get turned off after close of business, and the private apps are on no disturb. Otherwise, I find smartphones absolutely unbearable, worse than Tamagotchis – constantly vibrating needily.
I can see both sides of the argument but there’s no denying phones have affected our sense of togetherness. Loneliness and depression seem to be higher than ever. I saw some footage from the tornado in the US a few months back and they were filming inside a shelter that was full of people. They were all on their phones. Fair enough probably letting family know they are ok, or just bored. But I had recently watched a documentary about a similar natural disaster in the 90s, plus that Malcolm in the Middle episode where they all have to shelter in some gymnasium. People were chatting to one another. There just seemed to be some sort of kinship among these people who had found themselves bunched up together. Teenagers meeting each other and making new friends. Does that happen anymore, if you go on holiday? Or does everyone keep to themselves and their phones? The last big family get together I had a few years ago, most people kept checking their phones. They weren’t present in the moment and now we’ve not been able to see each other for over 2 years. The same goes if you watch films from <90s where people get buses or trains together. We used to see and talk to each other. I love chatting to friends even when we are not physically together, but I can’t help but feel like some sense of community has been lost. How many of us know our neighbours? You might but it’s definitely a resounding “fewer than before”.
Oh piss off you smug little wankers. You have a fucking computer in your hand and you are looking all smug like “no fone, i read book” like you are smart. You’re not smarter than everyone else because you don’t have a phone on you right now, you’re just smug pseudointelectual who thinks phones make you dumb.
> She plans to use the time gained from quitting her smartphone to read and sleep more.
I’ve done more reading with the Kindle app on my phone in the last five years than I did from real books in the previous ten.
I have a friend that did this and I totally respect not wanting to use social media or be always on your phone, but MFer doesn’t have a landline or anything and barely checks his emails so it’s nigh impossible to make plans with the guy, I’m thinking imma have to write letters like it’s 1800 lol