To Smartphone or Not to Smartphone
For the past 6 months or so, I've been using a dumbphone nearly exclusively. However, I'm dipping my toes back into smartphone usage with some limitations.
There's a lot of reasons I'm going back to using a smartphone more regularly, and Ironically it's for the same reasons I started using a dumbphone to begin with.
The main reason I started using a dumbphone was to facilitate intentional use with technology, disconnect from the predatory nature of Big Tech and their data hoarding, and connect more with my family. The last one being the most important.
For a while, I felt like smartphones were designed to get in the way of connection rather than help foster it. This is largely true with social media. However, when it comes to interactions when the person you want to talk to isn't nearby then you need to use a phone to talk to them. Usually this is texting.
Anybody who has ever used a flip phone will tell you that T9 is a pain in the ass. Even if you get quick with it, it's not very comfortable to use especially with longer text messages. And since these devices use SMS/MMS, there's a character limit you hit. If you go beyond that, it sends multiple messages, but often out of order.
When I'm at work, I can't call my wife, but I can text her. But when your main method of communication is a massive pain in the ass, you tend to not do it often. Which contradicts the fostering of connection.
A smartphone lets me send long messages to my wife, face time her and my daughter during lunch, send photos, send interesting links. It also lets my wife send me videos of my daughter that don't get bit-crushed to high hell due to the archaic nature of MMS. That's the thing that I missed the most when switching away, especially the older she gets. I don't wanna feel like I'm missing out on watching my little girl grow up.
I also feel really guilty about putting the burden of the utility of a smartphone on my wife. Pictures, videos, navigation, searching, lists, reminders, etc. all fall on her. And that doesn't feel fair to me.
To give you an example, there's been a few occasions where I'll write down directions to a specific place. But when I go to follow those directions, the street often doesn't share the name that it has on google. The street on google will say something like "W 1300 N", but when I go to follow it, there is no W 1300 N. The street I was supposed to turn on is Dork St. or something.
So when I inevitably get lost following Google's hallucinations of street names, I have to call my wife to navigate me. I'm now putting the burden of trying to process both where I'm at and how to navigate me on her. Which sucks for both of us, but I feel like I'm putting an unnecessary burden on her. It also isn't fun trying to get directions from someone who struggles with East/West.
It's stuff like that that made me reconsider using a smartphone. It's a death by a thousand cuts situation. So what do I do about it? I've come up with some ideas.
I'm taking on a hybrid approach. On "days off" (i.e days I'm not working or having to do any errands) I use my dumbphone. On every other day, I bring my iPhone.
The worry of falling back into old habits is still there, but I think I'm in a much better place now than I was when I started this journey.
The dumbphone has completed it's mission, making me reset my relationship with my phone. Turning it back into a tool rather than something that takes up way too much from me.
I'm not returning to social media anytime soon. It's done nothing but piss me off to the point even if I get secondhand info from it from a youtuber I like, I feel even more resolute.
There's also the privacy thing, but from what I've learned it's negligible the difference. Yes, the Kyocera does have less surface area to collect data. But there is no end-to-end encryption in my messages and my cell provider can still track my location/messages/calls via cell towers. I also still use some big tech devices, just by nature of my work and my home laptop. So the tracking difference doesn't leave much of an impact, really as it does with say completely leveling my social media presence.
There are other benefits to a smartphone. I'd be able to engage with my little slice of the indie web far easier, by making it more feasible to use my Status Cafe more regularly and contribute more to my micro blog.
I feel like I'm in a position now where my smart device becomes a tool rather than a sinkhole again. I don't have an addictive personality, so I'm not worried about going back to doom scrolling. I've decentralized my phone so much to the point it seems kinda stupid in my head to doom scroll reddit on safari when I could play on my PSVita or read on my train commutes.
I'm comfortable being the only one in a public waiting space not having my head shoved in the phone. I like being bored and looking at all the oddities. Seeing an abstract painting in my therapist's waiting room and wondering what image I can see in it, looking at how beat up the trim is by the carpet, stuff like that.
I think part of my internal struggle comes from feeling like being a dumbphone user has become some part of my identity, as silly as that sounds. So part of me feels like I'm betraying some aspect of myself. But I am not the device I carry in my pocket.
I kinda feel like Forest Gump after running across the U.S. for so long, and just one day turning around and "going home". I feel like I've learned a lot from this experience, but I also feel like a significant portion of my week is isolation from the people I care about the most, which isn't fun.
I started using a dumbphone largely to run away from hyperconectivity and trying to run from a problem that capitalism created. You don't escape your problems by hiding from them. Everything has pros and cons, and you have to evaluate what makes the most sense to you. I guess it's as the saying goes...
The answer is not a hut in the woods.
Previous |
Reply via email: me@absurdpirate.com
as of writing this...
This morning, I read chapter 13 of Blood Meridian. Chapter 12 was a fucking doozy and probably the most brutal chapter I've ever read in the book or otherwise.
I've got a Halo 3 game night with my online friends that people will hopefully hop onto. Last week nobody was able to join, so it's likely they'll join tonight.
I'm thinking of getting a poke bowl for lunch today. There's a shop by my house that is absolutely delicious.