How to get rid of smartphone addiction?

An American writer’s experience with a dumb phone

Kashmir Hill, a writer for The New York Times, wrote about her personal experience with replacing her smartphone with a dumb phone for a month. The goal was to get rid of her addiction to the smartphone, which she used for more than five hours a day in various important and unimportant activities. The writer expressed her regret for spending a long time in front of the smartphone screen and feeling guilty about it.

The benefits and challenges of the dumb phone

The writer decided to try something different in December 2023, which was to switch her expensive iPhone 15 with a simple and cheap Orbic phone that could only make calls and send text messages. The writer faced some difficulties in the process of switching, as the telecom company did not allow her to do it remotely and she had to visit the store. She also discovered that the battery of the dumb phone was weak and unstable and needed to be restarted frequently.

However, the writer found that there were some benefits to using the dumb phone, such as the availability of other high-quality and reliable services that have features such as maps, music, and voice recognition. She pointed out that the market for dumb or stupid phones has grown in recent years due to the increasing demand from people who want to reduce their use of smartphones. She quoted José Briones, the founder of the website “Dumb Phone Finder”, saying that people felt bored of the digital devices after the pandemic that forced them to stay connected to the internet constantly.

The difference between the smartphone and the dumb phone

The writer mentioned that she used two different phones in her experiment: Light Phone 2 and Hisense A9. They are both dumb phones that have digital screens similar to Kindle screens. She said that these screens make the phone more boring and less addictive. She confirmed that by referring to a study that showed that switching the smartphone to gray screen mode can reduce the time people spend in front of the screen by 18%.

The writer explained that she was satisfied with the level of boredom in her foldable dumb phone, which had a small and dull screen. She said that she faced some problems in transferring the service from the eSIM card in her smartphone to the real service in the dumb phone. She added that she had to write texts and emojis slowly using only 9 keys. She said that she replaced text messages with phone calls, which made her communicate with her friends and family in a more deep and honest way.

The results and recommendations

The writer concluded her article by emphasizing that her experience with the dumb phone was useful and surprising. She said that she learned that she did not need the smartphone to stay informed, and that she could get the information from her own computer. She pointed out that a survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 31% of adults say they are online almost constantly because of the smartphone. She recommended trying the dumb phone for those who want to get rid of smartphone addiction or reduce its use. She said that she would return to her smartphone at the end of the experiment, but with different conditions.

Giving up the smartphone for a month: A personal experience

The problems I faced

The writer was heavily dependent on her smartphone in her daily life. But when she decided to give it up for a month as part of an experiment, she faced many difficulties. For example:

She could not use a robotic vacuum cleaner that only worked with an iPhone app.
She could not monitor her bank account on the smartphone app that allowed her to transfer money between different accounts.
She could not access many of her online accounts, including her account in The New York Times newspaper, which required two-factor authentication via the smartphone app.

The benefits I got

Despite these challenges, the writer enjoyed the experience of giving up the smartphone for a month. She noticed some positive changes in her life. For example:

She felt comfortable from disconnecting from the internet regularly and for long periods, which allowed her to read four books and go on enjoyable trips with her husband, and talk to him instead of listening to separate soundtracks with earphones.
She felt that she had more time and control over her schedule, and did not feel pressured to respond to every message or notification.
She lost the “thumb twitch”, which is the physical desire to check the phone at every moment of boredom.
Her husband felt that her face became less tired, and her sleep improved greatly, because she did not carry her foldable dumb phone next to her bed, and did not wake up in the middle of the night because of the notifications or temptations.

The tips I received

The writer received some tips from experts in different fields on how to deal with the smartphone use better. For example:

She quoted Dr. Matthew Buman, a professor of movement science at Arizona State University, saying that our health competes with many of these services and companies that seek to attract our attention and time and energy. He conducted a study on strategies to encourage people to stay away from the screens and move more, such as sending motivational messages or giving screen time in exchange for achieving exercise goals.
She quoted Laura Zimmerman, an assistant professor at IE Business School in Madrid, saying that just tracking screen time does not help in controlling it. She added that a lot of our smartphone use is random, and we drift into loops of checking different apps. She said that we need to deal with the process of forming habits.
She quoted Camille Carlton, the policy director at the Center for Humane Technology, a non-profit organization that aims to raise awareness of the negative effects of technology, saying that many people realize that these platforms and these products are designed intentionally to addict them. She compared the smartphones and social media apps to fast food and tobacco, which cause addiction and harm to health.