That’s a good idea an electronic free weekend, camping or somewhere outdoors.
Get the feel. W/O TV, music, gaming, phones, tablets, kindles. Nothing.
I don’t know how you feel about the great outdoors. But you could try it in a way you could do it.
Its gonna be so difficult if you do your “work” online.
I feel for your plight. There are screens in our faces everywhere.
Both iPhones and Android phones have settings that will limit the amount of time you can use particular apps. For example, you could limit your browser usage to 15 minutes a day, while allowing full access to the map and music apps, etc. You could give that a try before doing something as drastic as trashing your phone.
There’s also devices like this that you can use to create enforceable phone breaks: Amazon.com: Vaydeer Metal Time Lock Box.
You don’t need GPS at home. If you’re trying to do creative writing, you’re probably not doing that while driving or grocery shopping. ISTM what you need is quiet time at home to focus on the stuff you ant to focus on.
Good luck ditching it, I know I spend more time with my nose buried in the internet since their advent. However, I basically have to have one where I work. It also has to be getting security updates, so I have to keep upgrading them to newer models, as well. I think I’ve got all the Google Gemini features turned off on this one now. If nothing else, I’ve squashed the ones that were the most intrusive.
You could get some of these frogs
I can see why you might think I was trying to say that. But I said that in response to a statement that seemed to imply I cannot possibly fathom how we survived without smartphones. I did not get my first cell phone until I was in college. I might have had one in high school but I was allowed to use it to call exactly one person in case of emergencies so basically I didn’t have one. As a senior, I was allowed to use AOL for like ten minutes a day - I guess technically the internet existed but it was not in any meaningful sense like the internet of today. You’re talking to a woman who bought a word processor when I was 12 to write novels on. That was how you did it in those days. And no I wouldn’t go back. The discs alone! At that time I could only fit like three or four chapters in a file.
The challenge here is that what worked in the 80s and 90s does not work in 2025. That is not a time we can go back to, not that I want to. We do not currently have much infrastructure to support the old ways of life. Taking, for example, the fact (I recently remembered) that the only way I can receive messages and updates from my son’s teacher is via a phone app. I’ve also talked to people who can’t even pay their rent without using a phone app.
Then there’s the richness of my intellectual life as a result of the internet. Podcasts and YouTube are constant fodder for great conversations between my partner and I. One of the great developments of modern-times, is that we have, if we choose it, better quality entertainment at our fingertips – and an expanded range of art forms. I also have access to a wide range of options for improving my own craft. Tonight I watched a YouTube video philosophizing about the reason we write fiction, and to be so simultaneously validated and seen and rekindling a spark of recognition about what a joyful process this can be, I mean, I needed that.
Having all of that being dismissed as “mere entertainment” and “excuses” chaps my hide.
The question is how to maintain all that good stuff while negating the influence of the bad.
Well, I did very well today, I didn’t pick up my phone at all until my work was done for the day, and maybe it’s just like that. I found that using my graphic interface/overlay thing on my phone I can hide YouTube and Chrome, which helped me remember not to use it on autopilot. I also uninstalled Discord, though the long-term consequences of that remain to be seen. It’s the primary means of communication between my husband and I concerning just about everything. But I do have a Desktop version and checking in once a day may be sufficient.
So if I can keep this up it’s probably going to be the way to go. I tend to do just fine until I need to pick up my phone for some reason - that’s when I go on autopilot and am barely aware of what I am doing. Which is why I keep notifications on my Pixel watch so I can be sure there are no emergency messages from my boss, my husband or my son’s school. The rest I can just ignore until I get around to them.
I appreciate everyone’s thoughts, thank you.
Why go to Amazon? Either buy directly from Garmin or look to ebay; there are tons of cheap ($25) used ones that work just fine.
Does your car have a usb port in it? Download away to a thumb drive & they plug that into your car. No smartphone needed.
What a thought-provoking and interesting post. And a reminder why you’re one of my favorite members of this board. I apologize if I minimized your concerns at all.
I think I understand better now what you are trying to do. Yes, the internet is both wonderful and terrible. It amplifies everything-- news, information and opinion gets to everybody instantly, but there are no filters when it comes to what is real, or what is made-up BS meant to manipulate people.
And yes, we are all becoming far too dependent on apps and such for basic information, such as when my kids were in school, to get info on their grades and performance.
I’ve heard the internet effect on our brains described described as ‘a fire hose filling a teacup’. I had a good 30 plus years of life before cellphones and the web started changing my way of information processing, for better or worse. So I had some perspective on the new information era. You grew up on the cusp of that. I’ve seen my kids and my friends’ kids affected in various ways by their growing up in the internet era. Some positively, but many not.
Entirely futile. Even our outdoor people have smartphones these days. It’s absolutely essential to modern living. If you’re experiencing negative aspects from owning one, then that is the problem to solve.
Do you have an android, an iphone, or something else?
My android phone allows me to set up various “modes”, like do not disturb, or bedtime. And it does things like block notifications or dim the screen when those are on.
I mention this because if the problem you want to address is “more mental downtime”, you could, perhaps, just set blocks of time aside when you don’t use the phone. Every day from 9-1 the phone only allows notifications from your husband and the school office (so you can get emergency calls) but you don’t get alerts from any media, for instance.
Regarding YouTube and Chrome, if you go to Settings->Apps, choose, for example, YouTube, and disable it. That will make it disappear from some places (not all, though).
Regarding PodCasts, you could research the Light Phone, which seems to be able to play them:
https://support.thelightphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045122851-Podcast-Tool
It also does directions, but without pretty maps.
Well, what seems to be working (all of three days so far) is no phone until work is over for the day, and I removed Discord from my phone as well. YouTube is hidden and comment notifications are turned off. I enjoy unwinding with a nice FlossTube (cross stitch community) or slow living video after my work is done.
I did have to use my phone today for a telehealth appointment but it doesn’t seem to have caused much damage. I have to keep it near me all day though because I’m waiting on an important call and if I miss it, it’s going to be a problem.
Considering that in most circumstances I am fully capable of putting my phone away from 8pm to about 3pm the following day, I’m probably not doing too bad. The place I have the most trouble is work, so that’s going to take some planning.
I’ve also gotten a lot of traction out of doing only one thing at a time. I feel so much less overwhelmed by my ADHD when I have one tab open and am doing one solitary thing. Like, this post and nothing else. Or I write a response on Discord and then close it before I go do something else. It really clears away the mental clutter and forces a pause to think - what do I actually want to do next?
Android. I have it on Focus Mode by default during the work day.
Simply untrue. I know many people living a modern life in a modern country who choose to not have a smartphone and do just fine. I was without one up until the early 2020’s, and almost never use mine for ‘smart’ applications.
For some things it absolutely is.
Our security at work now requires that I log onto my desktop @ work by using an app installed on my phone.
You cannot get into some concert/sports event venues unless you have a cell phone. I find this maddening and will probably not attend these kinds of events ever again.
There are some parking garages I’ve come across where no one is on duty and you have to use an app to pay for your ticket by scanning a QR code. These garages have no paper tickets.
These are just a few examples I’ve discovered in my personal life the past couple years.
I hate it but is the new reality.
I find this general point interesting, because when I first figured out people were doing this, it was one of those mundane lightbulb revelations about how other people are different in ways I had never considered. Because one tab at a time is how I’ve always approached the internet. The only time I have multiple tabs open is if I am doing something that specifically requires it - i.e. comparing charts or some such. Otherwise it is always one tab. The idea of having multiple entertainment or not immediately needed work tabs open just seems like clutter, the time saved in navigating trivial 
. But then again I like a cleaner interface on my desktop with all the icons arranged neatly on one side and kept to a reasonable number so I can look at my background picture more cleanly. Just a personality thing, I’m sure. Mr. Maximum J. Efficiency I’m not.
Same, however ours is more of a once every couple of weeks-style verification. I have work-issued personal low-end iphone that lives in drawer, normally turned off, for that task and that alone. Otherwise we have non-personal “site” iphones that I use when I’m on duty. So technically I never need one for my job, as the job provides them.
But yeah, at the very least internet access of some sort is a necessity for modern living these days. This was driven home to me a few years back when social services in a nearby county made all services and verifications internet-based. Folks like my elderly mother who had always shunned the internet were advised to seek out a friend or relative to help them. Heaven help them if they didn’t know anyone that could, because regular phone and snail-mail support was fully discontinued.
I’ve had to use a phone app daily to log into my work laptop for two employers and several years, now. Up until about 5 years ago, there was a non-phone alternative, but they shut that down. I’ve needed to use a cell phone authenticator app to deal with various government agencies, too. I suppose i could have gone to those agencies in person, but that would have required making an appointment, traveling, and a lot of waiting in line. The on-line option is far superior. Other than work, i can’t think of anywhere where i had no option other than using a cell phone, but i use a cell phone for an awful lot of stuff, including my train tickets in Germany (and the app handled the cancelled train smoothly, much more smoothly than a paper ticket), conforming authorization to play Minecraft (i needed the M$ authenticator app) and a whole host of things great and small.
Tangential side rant:
Something I really hate about smartphones is that they actively remove user control in favor of corporate control.
With a PC, you are typically its owner and “root user”/super-administrator by default — having more privileges and permissions over the software that you install. This makes possible everything from ad blockers to pirated software to modifications (like browser user scripts or game hacks, etc.). It puts you firmly in control.
With cell phones, the entire mentality is reversed. App authors in cahoots with Google or Apple determine what you can or cannot do. If they don’t want you to be able to take a screenshot, you can’t. If they don’t want you to block ads, you can’t (or have to jump through hoops to do so). If they don’t want you to run a rooted phone, they can detect that and forbid you from running everything from banking apps to Netflix.
There are sometimes workarounds, but it gets a bit worse and more difficult every year.
It’s just a sad reflection of modern capitalism. Google and Apple care more about their actual customers, advertisers and app authors (who give them a 30% cut) than you, the user, who buys their products. You’re treated as just a dumb consumer who will swallow up anything Big Tech throws at you, and every adjunct organization from your local government to work and school IT will just subcontract out all that kind of stuff to some other shitty company. You’re just held hostage by it all, even if it’s your tax dollars, tuition, or employee labor that’s paying for all of this stuff. Some days it feels like we’ve moved to a digital scrip-based economy…
On a phone, you really own nothing anymore, it’s all just a bunch of paid subscriptions and invasive adware and gambling with dark patterns galore… most smartphone apps just funnel money from the everyday working poor into the hands of fewer and fewer megacorps, and increasingly, omnipotent single individuals. There’s no checks and balances to any of this, no democratic oversight (especially in the US compared to the EU), no meaningful competition…
But hey, as long as the newest model comes with 10% more shiny, we’re just going to keep paying for it =/
Sigh. Where’d that cloud go?! I’m not done yelling!
Modern life involves smart phones, by definition. Some might still be alive today and functioning reasonably well without a smart phone, but they aren’t partaking in modern living. They might even have a profoundly wise basis for choosing to not participate in modern life, but smart phones are quintessentially the modern norm.
Whose definition is that?
So a typical example from me before I tried this new way: On my desktop: Put stuff in Discord for a friend, open browser tab to check email while I’m waiting for a response, remember something else to put in Discord, try to do a mail task which opens a Browser tab, now I’m checking my email, doing the email task and still waiting on Discord. Now I’ve got another task from Discord (primary family communication hub.) Plus I’ve got messages coming in on my phone. It’s chaos.
It’s not intentional. I have ADHD and it’s very easy for me to lose track of myself when it comes to technology. It’s hard for me to prioritize among all these competing items so even when I’m being productive I’m just bouncing from one thing to the other. I’ve been having these afternoon brain fog crashes for about two years, which make it all worse, where I will just lose hours being led around by this or that impulse, and I couldn’t even tell you what I did. I think it could be long COVID (since that’s when it started), perimenopause, sleep apnea, neurodivergent burnout, or all four. (Today I started an afternoon dose of Adderall to help mitigate - we’ll see how that goes.)
So this one tab/task at a time thing, it’s revolutionary.
I just had another crazy productive day!
The new rule is I don’t touch my phone until 3pm unless absolutely necessary. I was worried I’d screw this up in the office, but I didn’t. Just stuck the phone in a cabinet and worked all day.
What I most miss is sharing memes and news with my husband in Discord. We’d exchange some pretty rad articles to discuss later.
Oh, plus I’ve been getting up and moving 250+ steps every hour (my watch tells me to move.) That also forces me out of that state of mind-numb and helps me focus.