> We’ll keep wondering why we can’t just put our phones down, not realizing that billion-dollar companies have spent a decade making sure we can’t.
I deleted an app every month until my phone was so boring I threw it in a drawer and canceled my cell phone subscription. It confuses and annoys everyone around me, but my attention span, happiness, and productivity have skyrocketed so I really do not care what the addicts think. It works for me.
I truly encourage everyone to consider how humans survived before smartphones. All of that still works fine today. 5 years cell-phone free.
No cell phone at all as I do not wish to have my location sold, rely on proprietary tech, or to be reachable at all times. I also use cash exclusively IRL so my digital footprint away from home is virtually zero.
I am happiest being intentional and present in whatever I am doing. I am reachable from my desktop by email, matrix, or VoIP SMS, when I am at my desk and have been able to run a profitable security research and consulting business this way.
I do have a very small laptop I carry when I am going to be away from my desk more than one business day, but the overwhelming majority of the time I have no electronics of any kind on my person when I leave home.
Typically I carry a mechanical watch, a micro-wallet, and sometimes a notebook, or mechanical puzzle.
My go-tos are the CIGA Eye Of Horus and the Bradley Element, both using a Leatherman Tread for a band with TreadLinks adapters so I always have some basic tools with me which get used a surprising amount.
I deleted an app every month until my phone was so boring I threw it in a drawer and canceled my cell phone subscription. It confuses and annoys everyone around me, but my attention span, happiness, and productivity have skyrocketed so I really do not care what the addicts think. It works for me.
I truly encourage everyone to consider how humans survived before smartphones. All of that still works fine today. 5 years cell-phone free.