Smart Phone Dumb
Or I How Turned Off My iPhone’s Function & Learned to Love The Silence.
I kept a flip phone up until 2012. When the phone’s battery died and I went to get a new one, my carrier flat out told me they were no longer servicing the model.
In comes my first smartphone. It was an iPhone and because I had so many credits on my service account, the upgrade was free. Not bad at all.
Now… I run a small business and the mantra in the entrepreneurial world is that you have to be on all the time. And so, like everyone else, I made sure my emails — cause we have more than one to keep track of — and other social media apps were a “necessity” for staying relevant and successful. That it’s necessary to operating your business. However… Running a business of any size takes it’s toll on you. The constant pings and blips and the immediacy of being on added more pressure to my life than I cared for.
My smartphone became a digital handcuff.
Ares of my life started to get really dark and fall apart all because of the constant pressures of trying to keep the doors open. It wasn’t long before I was clinically diagnosed with Major Depression and had my own little run in with some serious depressive episodes that it was time to change things in my life.
So while it might seem trivial at first to think “oh… He’s just not tech’ing right,” or “it’s just a phone,” for me it’s a way of managing stress.
One of those ways — amongst many — was to kill my smartphone.
Following the 80/20 rule, I took all the apps which I never used and simply — and ruthlessly — wiped them from my phone. In addition to that, I took any thing which would shred my attention or make me feel negative.
At first, I had just turned off notifications on my email and social media apps. But it wasn’t enough. I’d have a tendency to check every now and then… So, I killed them without mercy.


Currently, my phone has no email apps, no social media apps other than Instagram, no synced services like Dropbox. What my phone does have are things I use daily and what helps me do better such as Audible, Lyft (I don’t own a car), Notes and Reminders. I’ve disabled my web browser, too.
I still feel like I could get rid of more and get it down to just text and calls.
As for the pressures of work… Well, work can wait. People can call and text, but if it’s work related, it’ll go straight to voice mail, or they’ll have to wait until I get into the office.
Even then, I only check email once a day — another post on that too.
