Before I'd be checking everything, such as buses and restaurants, on my smartphone [when travelling]. Now that is impossible, so I have learned to do all those things beforehand at home. I got used to it.
PRZEMEK OLEJNICZAK, Not smart but clever? The return of 'dumbphones'
I have never owned a smartphone. My preferred device is a flip phone. I have owned a few flip phones over the years, and I keep them until they break or the network no longer supports the device like the move I made to 4G in 2019. My current model is a Kyocera rugged phone from Verizon. It is a beast.
My phone calls and sends texts. I am able to do group texts now which I couldn't do before with my old phone. It has a camera which takes pictures that are good enough for me. It has a mini-browser that isn't worth using. I do not have any social media accounts, so I never use the phone for those distractions. It does not support apps, and it has no navigation function like Google Maps or Waze. It is a dumbphone.
I believe in a thing called the tech-hedonic treadmill. It is the hedonic treadmill applied to technology. Basically, you adjust to whatever tech is in your life and get used to it. This goes in both directions. If you upgrade, you adjust to that until it becomes indispensable to your being and life. If you downgrade, there is a withdrawal phase as you adjust back to what life was like before smartphones. Eventually, you like the simplicity and lack of distractions.
When I whip out my flip phone, I get the same questions. Is that your work phone? Is that the only phone that you can afford? How do you live with that thing?
I choose the dumbphone because I don't care to live a life of chronic distraction. I already have enough on my plate without adding more to it. Because I have never had a smartphone, I live as I have always lived before these devices became ubiquitous. Here is how I deal with various things.
1. Navigation
My wife and I use a dedicated Garmin GPS in the car. I have used this thing for years. Once, a coworker tried to use her phone instead of my Garmin. We got lost. I suspect that those apps have improved since then, but I prefer my Garmin.
As a backup to the Garmin, my wife and I will print out the directions from Google Maps. I also hang on to my paper maps and atlases. You can get many of these for free at interstate welcome centers and rest stops.
2. Email
I use my computer or my wife's Chromebook to check my email. Some jobs require constant contact, but that doesn't apply to us. I think being able to ignore email is awesome.
3. Coupons
We print our coupons with a Brother printer before going to the store. My wife is like me in not ever owning a smartphone. She laments that she can't check prices in real time at a store until I remind her of what a new iPhone costs.
4. QR codes
I wouldn't scan these things even if I had a smartphone. Some clever hackers have taken to posting fake QR codes that take you to malicious websites. We rarely eat out, but we usually read the menu online before ever going to the restaurant. Personally, I think restaurants that don't have physical menus aren't worth your patronage.
5. Paying for things
Cash is king. The check is in the mail. Swipe the debit card. Cut up the credit cards. Laugh at anyone behind you who is annoyed at you for taking the extra 30 seconds for an old school payment method. Inevitably, everyone will take the mark of the beast, but I won't.
6. Social media
I don't have any social media accounts. I had a Twitter addiction years ago that I beat after many tries, and that was with a desktop computer. I can only imagine the nightmare for me if I was using a smartphone.
7. Pictures
The cameras on dumbphones aren't the greatest. The reality is that a smartphone is a camera that can make a phone call. I have a phone that can take a picture. Those pictures are as good as the ones I used to take with my disposable Kodak camera back in the day. If I need a high quality camera, I will buy the dedicated camera once instead of upgrading to the latest iPhone every two years (or less.)
8. Uber
I refuse to use an Uber. I call the real taxi service not some psycho with an app on his phone. I keep the taxi number in the contacts list on my dumbphone.
9. Internet access on the road
My wife has a Chromebook that we take with us. We use WiFi at hotels and coffee places for essential information. Otherwise, we try to enjoy the real world instead of the fake online world.
10. Waiting rooms and checkout lines
When people end up waiting for more than 30 seconds, out come the phones! This would annoy me except I usually look at magazines as I have done for my entire life. I have a high tolerance for boredom because I never got addicted to the constant distraction of the smartphone. I don't have any clever games on my dumbphone either. I just watch, observe, listen, and think to whatever is in my surroundings.
11. Audio entertainment
I listen to my podcasts on my desktop computer with a set of headphones. I like to turn off the lights and close my eyes while I listen. I listen to the radio or my old school Sony Walkman the rest of the time. Radio is my primary listening.
12. Taking notes
I keep a notebook and a pencil in my pocket for writing things down. If I don't have the notebook, I send a text to my email account where I check it later.
13. Calculator, calendar, and flashlight.
My flip phone has these tools. It has some other features, but I never use them.
Gentle Reader, this is how I live without a smartphone. Because I never had a smartphone, I don't realize any inconvenience in not having one. I live as if it is still 2007. For some odd reason, many people online wish they could go back to that simpler time. I never left it.
UPDATE: I found this post on the dumbphone reddit that I quote in its entirety in anticipation of deletion:
I'm tired of all the "Need a Dumbphone that has [insert smartphone app]" posts
Mods can remove this if they want, I have no problem with it, but I want to vent.
I've been on this community for a while, and the number of posts I see about this topic is ridiculous: "is there a dumbphone with social media?" "can I play games on this phone?" "looking for a dumbphone with spotify" You're completely missing the point of a dumbphone by asking these questions. Here's the reality: dumbphones suck, and I don't mean this in a way of saying you shouldn't get a dumbphone, but dumbphones are supposed to be unenjoyable. They are supposed to suck so you can spend the time doing other things, like living more in the present. Isn't that why we're all here in the first place? We feel so consumed by technology so we use dumbphones to get a break from smartphone life, and guess what? the things we're leaving behind include things we like doing, like using social media, music, and games. And sure, there are some dumbphones with these things, like the jelly phones (which jose has a great dumbphone finder in the subs community bookmarks that answers all these questions). I just [think] the people who are asking these questions constantly on this subreddit are missing the point of a dumbphone.
I totally agree with the original poster. Getting a dumbphone and demanding that it do smartphone tricks is pure idiocy. The middle solution is to get a smartphone and dumb it down to essentials. I have taken to recommending this to people who have to use a smartphone for work or whatever. A smartphone without social media apps is smart. You just have to possess the discipline to not reload those social media apps.
