I’ve been using a flip phone as my daily driver for a while now. The smartphone is still around, but it mostly sits in a drawer until bureaucracy or banking apps force me to use it.
For me, the benefits are clear: less distraction, more focus, better sleep. But I know for many people it’s not so easy. Essential apps, social pressure, work requirements… these are real blockers.
I’d like to start a discussion (almost like an informal poll):
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If you thought about switching, what’s the single biggest thing that holds you back?
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Is it banking? Messaging? Maps? Something else?
I’m genuinely curious because if we can identify the main pain points, maybe it’s possible to work on solutions or even start a small project around it.
So: what would need to change for you to actually give a flip phone a try?
You may as well ask me to throw away me phone entirely. I don’t carry a smartphone to make phone calls. I hate phone calls.
95% of that is spam.
I use my phone to take pictures, send those pictures, look for restaurants, navigate to those restaurants, listen to music, etc.
It’s solving device addiction with another device. Sure it will be very interesting to investigate phone models to pick from. Indeed we are good at tricking ourselves. Creating “windows” with no phone at all works better for me.
Going to a dumb phone feels to me like cutting everything off of my cat except her claws and her asshole. Everything I actually have this creature for is now gone but at least it still scratches and shits!
I hate the telephone. It’s a technology our culture maintains specifically to grant Indian criminals intercontinental access to my pants.
On paper, my phone should be a monumentally powerful computer. 8 core processor, multiple gigabytes of RAM, hundreds of gigabytes of flash memory, a suite of sensors, a suite of radio modems, an always-on connection to the sumtotal of all human knowledge, multiple high-resolution cameras, a battery that, when new, ran the thing for over a day, packed into a quarter inch thick rectangle of glass and aluminum I can carry around in my pocket. It should be an omnifunctional multitool, assisting my life in dozens of subtle ways linking my projects and communications together to save me effort, making me able to respond to ever more stimuli in ever more potent ways.
I scroll Lemmy and watch Youtube on it. Sometimes I use it as a kitchen timer and listen to music. I might even use its calculator app instead of googling a math problem.
The app ecosystem is dead because it’s designed mostly to promote advertising. I try extremely hard not to install apps on this thing because apps are tape worms. I do as much as I can through Firefox.
It’s not the computer I want to gouge out of this device. It’s the corporate rot. That’s who makes the attention trap slop troughs. I want a “smart phone” or maybe a 5G PDA. I don’t want Google, Apple, Meta or Amazon involved.
I’m closer to carrying around a cyberdeck than a dumbphone.
I don’t like either sms or phonecalls.
Precisely. I’d be more likely to switch to one of those pocket “hot spot” devices. Just a thing in my pocket that gives devices I control internet access and maybe has a shitty web interface I can log into for basic SMS when absolutely necessary. No microphone, no camera, no GPS, no access to my actual computing environment. Only 2 downsides are maintaining battery charge in multiple devices and the fact that those hotspots are generally hot garbage, and so unreliable.
Maybe, a flip phone if one existed that was 1) a full-time good quality internet hotspot (i.e., good battery), and 2) lacked a GPS and camera, and hardware disconnected the microphone when closed. Now that I think about it, that would be a fantastic device… if it existed.
Pretty much because my smartphone is basically my digital Swiss army knife. Like even if I got a separate digital camera and MP3 Player, I also use it for navigation and to communicate with my parents and friends over signal, and like hell I am gonna give up signal. Add to that it’s also my portable wifi hotspot when I’m out, my train tickets, and how I pay for things when I’m sans-purse, I don’t know if I can give up my smartphone.
Would it be good for me to get off social media and to stop doomscrolling the news? Yes, but I can do that by going out and touching grass.
Keep in mind that doom scrolling while laying on grass is also an option. I will come back later for more uninteresting tips.
It would have to have Signal.
WhatsApp is non optional
I’d like to be able to use Signal.
I don’t make phone calls and rarely use SMS. All the features I need/want from a phone would be missing.
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I genuinely love my phone. It makes my life better.
No
Being forced to use a stock google android or iOS would be what drives me to use a dumb phone.
As long as I can install a custom ROM like LineageOS or GrapheneOS, I’m good.
I haven’t thought about switching mainly because I listen to music, books from the library and podcasts on it. I don’t want to go back to carrying 2 devices. But I mostly use my phone to look stuff up, check email, and music/books etc. I don’t really use social media on it.
Whatsapp. That’s the only fucking reason I’m not using a dumbphone. In Brazil, everyone uses it. Need to talk to a company? Whatsapp. Friends and family? Wpp. Book a medical checkup? Wpp.
There’s also the problem of cell phone fees being abusive when calling/messaging people from a different company.
Dumb phones with KaiOS can have WhatsApp installed
That sounds dystopian
The main blocker is MFA. I can technically work around Google Authenticator (I use Aegis currently) because I can run it on my laptop, but I also need Okta verify (work VPN), Symantec VIP (bank), and the Steam app.
And some other very nice to haves:
- Signal messenger
- SSH client
- Libby app
- Organic Maps
I can find workaround for the rest.
That said, wouldn’t it just be easier to uninstall the apps that cause distractions?
Well I had the displeasure of having to use a candybar style phone my mother was using cause it was ‘easier’ for her.
- Ages to write a message
- Very difficult to navigate through very similar SMSs (automated ones like electronic prescriptions) and pick the correct one based on date. Or even get an accurate broader picture of how many SMSs you received and when.
- Did not setup email but I believe it would also be horrendous
But in my case, I disagree with the base premise of this post. The biggest anxiety and distraction caused by my phone is via phone calls. Asynchronous communications like sms and email are much better for me.
