I Bought a Dumbphone
What happens next will SHOCK you!!!!1
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I’ve been using a little (and I mean little) device called the Light Phone II in place of my smartphone for the last three-ish weeks.
Its core feature is that it has no features, “boasting” an intentionally limited palette of offerings including a phone, alarm, hotspot, and podcast player. Notably, it excludes a web browser, social media apps, a camera, and a video player. It lacks the ability to directly receive photos and links — forwarding them to my email instead — and the ability to send emojis, leaving me to wonder: How am I going to convey a mood of absurd humor, mild discomfort, and a pinch of sarcasm without THIS: 🙃!!??
Despite that burning question, I like this phone so far. What it lacks in features it makes up for in … nothing. And that’s what’s great about it. Who doesn’t want more free spaces on their bingo card?
In the time I otherwise would have spent taming notifications on seven different messaging apps, doomscrolling Twitter, or googling why Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson broke up I instead got 👏 important 👏 shit 👏 done. Jeremy and I looked over our finances and created categorized budgets, I completed a design project I’ve been working on at a glacial pace for a friend, and I finally made that dentist appointment for my cat (don’t ask) that has been on my to-do list for literal years.
And now that I’ve removed the proverbial clump of hair from the drain, fun ideas can flow again — ideas like writing this post about my experience unclogging that drain. (fun!)
My positive experience with this limiting device has also left me with a bigger, more philosophical question: What does it mean, for individuals and society, when technology “improves” to a point at which downgrades to tech are upgrades to quality of life?
I’m old enough to remember when the release of a new iPhone or futuristic technology inspired awe and excitement, not existential dread. Compare that to today’s chilly reception of things like face filters so realistic they’re indistinguishable from reality *shudder* or the prospect of interacting with one’s coworkers via the metaverse *vomit*. Today’s new technological developments may expand material possibilities, but they’re indifferent at best and antithetical at worst to the emotional and spiritual needs of the human beings they’re ostensibly designed to serve.
It’s no wonder the state of being constantly plugged in — of consuming an endless stream of information, news, and opinion — makes people miserable. Yet, these days, living this way feels unavoidable. We have to be very online, because all of our friends are. We have to be reachable 25/8, because it’s the expectation we’ve set at work. We have to set our internal clock to the daily news cycle, because something to do with democracy.
My experience with the Light Phone begs the question: What if we don’t?
Maybe what I’m about to say is in itself hyperbolic — a result of my being too online for the last so many years — but I get the sense that society will likely head down one of two very different paths: One, decentralized, in which technology is used as a tool to facilitate self-actualization and human flourishing; or another, authoritarian, in which technology is used to control the many to further the interests of the few.
I desperately hope we choose the path of humanity. But before we can do so civilizationally, we need to first recognize, individually, that we have choices in the first place, and that those choices matter, influencing norms of behavior, social policy, and, ultimately, the nature of experience itself.
I’ve said this before, but I haven’t always acted as if it’s true. I bought a dumbphone to disrupt that pattern; to see what happens when I put my money where my mouth is.
So far, so good.
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"Downgrades to tech are upgrades to quality of life"!!!!!!
Also love the bit about individuals "have choices in the first place, and that those choices matter, influencing norms of behavior, social policy, and, ultimately, the nature of experience itself." I prefer this approach; a silent revolution.