I will spare you the argument against smartphones and go directly to the part where you redesign your life and your engagement with tech by switching to a dumbphone.
You’re going to come to a place and time when, as with the redeemed crackhead, the Spirit compels you to turn from your addiction and drop the pipe and the rock for good because all the myriad justifications have worn thin and have shown themselves to be empty.
There are innumerable manuals, studies, and paths related to dropping addiction. Or, if you prefer a gentler euphemism, building new habits.
Or you won’t — and, in the best-case scenario, your life will be characterized by an internal war you wage against your better self as directed by a set of parasitic algorithms.
So here’s a list of suggestions about how to get into the dumbphone.
Find an alternative (for now)
If you want to go full cabin-in-the-woods, there are ways and means. Good luck out there, and meet me at the tree line. However, if you decide that staying in phone (voice and text) contact with the world of men is necessary or wise, then you’re likely looking at what we lovingly refer to as the dumbphone. We are stepping back into 2004.
We all know the Nokia stands out. (No one is sponsoring this article.) They are cheap and rugged, and the plans are flexible. Get one.
Backstop expectations
Employers, loved ones, and almost everyone else expect you to have a phone and everything that comes with it. Cut them off at the proverbial pass by building in some alternatives to those few features of the phone that are (sort of) useful.
Get a small flashlight. Buy a dumbphone with a half-decent camera.
Pick up an atlas or “Thomas Guide.” If that’s not enough, perhaps it is worthwhile to retain or install some equivalent navigational aid or app in your vehicle.
Advice: Once the dopamine circuits in your brain have been stabilized, you can go back and refine your replacements. Escape need not be perfect. You’re going to find yourself on the outside; the world is now weird. Just keep refining your alternative methods.
Pick a time
As you design your way out of the smartphone trap, what’s frustrating is that almost no one is going to sympathize or know how to help. You’re on your own.
It’s quite a world where you need to justify your choice not to participate in something so strongly correlated with depression, dissatisfaction, isolation, and lifestyle choices generally at odds with those proven over huge stretches of time. (You don’t need the studies if you lived through 2008 … or 2016 … or 2020 … or …)
Pick a long weekend or vacation to make the initial change. This at least gives you some leeway to flop around and bemoan flagging levels of dopamine and do the interior work of shoring yourself up to carry through the operation.
Call in some favors
As with the above, it’s wise to tell your loved ones — especially your spouse — that your communications situation is changing. There are mixed reports regarding the value of “accountability partners” (individuals to whom you report your progress in some difficult personal change), but again, if you’re going all in, why not throw everything you’ve got at it? No doubt, husband and wife picking up the dumbphone together is only sensible.
Lay in provisions
It is always best to keep that “Thomas Guide,” those comforting snacks, and the other considerations mentioned above close to hand and mind, but there are other problems to address, too. For example, there are decisions to be made about whether to keep sundry smartphone apps and resources and, if so, which ones.
The big question for many potential dumbphone users will be about social media use. As it stands, the vast majority of users are stuck to their phones for their X or Instagram fix. Both of these and probably many similar platforms are available in a desktop version. Getting used to the differences in the interfaces (assuming you’re keeping some tether to them at all) is a worthwhile preparatory step.
The situation extends, of course, to crypto wallets and apps and any other phone-based software you care to hold on to — it may be easier to let go of the smartphone if much of its supposed utility can simply be stored on a laptop or a desktop.
Power through
There are innumerable manuals, studies, and paths related to dropping addiction. Or, if you prefer a gentler euphemism, building new habits. The issue, of course, is that the modern mind, when pressed, excels at justification.
The truth of our predicament is likely that the smartphone is a symptom of a much deeper, more subtle malaise. Will reverting to a dumbphone make it feel worse? In the short term, it’s quite common in situations like these for our lives to feel even emptier without whatever was sustaining the illusion of having a genuine experience of being.
For many of us, we’ve already run the gamut of self-improvement and hacks. Dropping the phone is a choice near the tail end of that progression. It’s easy to play the aforementioned game of justification with respect to order of tasks. But it may also be necessary to address other issues before taking up the path of the dumbphone …
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