2024 will be the last year I use a smartphone

November 27th, 2023

Over the last few months I've been squashing some of the final remaining services and programs that I've continued to use despite my best judgement. These are often over privacy concerns, but increasingly I've noticed that many of these changes come from a place of enjoyment for utility diversification more than anything. Using a tool designed for a single purpose, already a typical improvement in the realm of security, simply results in a more satisfactory experience than interfacing with monolithic technology. In essence, I've been employing the primary identifier of the Unix philosophy into my everyday life, and thus far it has been great. However, there has been one major outlier- the single biggest hurdle in both opsec and enjoyment- the smartphone. Next year, that changes.

Hopefully I shouldn't have to explain the massive security concerns that come with cellular technology at the core of its ideology- the capability of tracking via celltower pings is present no matter the intellectual prowess of your handheld device. Moreover, the psychological tactics many companies and manufacturers use to keep us addicted to our small screens rivals that of government agencies, assuming they aren't in on it as well. That being said they have become undeniably integrated into the life of everyday first-world society that to totally forgo them would require lengths I'm not (currently) ready for. Not to mention that phones still fulfill a necessity I have- contacting family in various parts of the country away from my own. Minor concessions made in the name of wider movements towards a change are less dangerous than the notion that change must be "all or nothing" to have any present effect. It is the pursuit of these changes and our smaller actions around them that lead to the life we hope to see, not the drastic swings that often result in backpedalling. Thus, the compromise I've reached is using a so-called "dumbphone."

The benefits of a "dumbphone" largely revolve around the philosophy of restricting that which you know to be a negative influence on life regardless of inconvenience. The general lack of app support from major social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit (all of which I'm suspending my accounts for this year) not only limit the amount of online data that is harvested from us, but also shows one how much time they typically waste throughout any given day browsing these sites. Breaking away from mobile-focused services like Spotify and Netflix not only allow us to exercise our right to ownership of the media we consume, but encourage us to more directly support those that create entertainment we enjoy. It almost seems obvious when you factor in that detaching yourself for the smartphone ecosphere has huge financial incentives- less overpriced hardware, less pushes for subscription plans- for what is seemingly the same functionality after some additional setup work upfront. Our culture often prescribes "additive" treatments as the norm- another NEW tool will make you more productive, another NEW abstraction will make this technology simplier. This backwards approach of removing what isn't working is unfortunately so often overlooked.

What has given me a lot of hope is that this seems to be largely growing trend, particularly among younger folks (maybe the zoomers will save us after all). Looking online there is a welcoming amount of tutorials and blogs from people who describe their experience for starting and maintaining this move away from monolithic technology. There's a surprising amount of headache when it comes to finding "dumbphones" that fits within the bandwidth ranges set for newer smartphones, so to see a quasi-community form around the sharing of this information really harkens back to some of the origins of internet culture. It's exciting to see! I'm looking forward to documenting and sharing my experience with this as well.

The kids are getting sick of their tablets. Maybe there IS still time to course-correct!