What If You Abandon Your Smartphone?
Published in
8 min readJul 23, 2020
Late last year, I was at a dinner with friends and we were talking about how we use our smartphones too much. It suddenly hit me that, one year earlier, I’d had the exact same conversation, yet I was still using my phone just as much.
Then and there, I decided to give up my smartphone.
Why I switched
I gave up my smartphone for three reasons:
- Excessive usage: I used my smartphone more than I wanted, and less purposefully.
- Lack of mindfulness: I felt there was an association between my smartphone and my not being as mindful and focused as I wanted.
- Quality of relationships: I wanted to try and replace “a lot of superficial friendships” with “a few deeper friendships”.
The switch
I asked a relative to give me one of his old dumbphones. Even though I wanted a Nokia for nostalgia’s sake, I ended up going with an LG A190.
The following few days were filled with pleasant surprises:
- Battery life: the dumbphone’s battery lasts about 4–5 days — no more battery anxiety!