I did my usual investigation of flip phones and dumb phones; couldn't find one that ran Android or basic apps like Spotify and podcasts that I use every day *and* worked on major US cell carriers. There's some cool E-Ink phones out of China, but AFAIK they don't have full compatibility on US cell networks.
I ended up with an iPhone and I just dumb it down. Black background, installed only like a dozen apps, removed a bunch of the preinstalled ones, aggressively culled notifications.
Actually I've been thinking of removing the web browser from my iPhone. Your post inspired me to do it. Settings --> Screen Time --> Content & Privacy --> Allowed Apps, disable Safari. Let's see how I manage!
But I have buried it on the third page of a sub-folder, so I'm not tempted to randomly open it.
I think the most important thing is to just not /usually/ have the phone in your pocket, so you break the habit of reaching for it.
The trick is to find ways to carry it with you less.
The_MeatMaster•4mo ago
Also, I hate how smartphones are a necessity in todays world, you usually need them for verification, paying bills, etc.
robotelvis•4mo ago
There are definitely lots of things you need a smartphone for today, but fortunately few enough that it's practical to not have a smartphone with you most of the time, even if you own one.
Hopefully if enough people go phoneless, society will adapt to require smartphones less often.
The_MeatMaster•4mo ago
floundy•4mo ago
Actually Apple seems decent with storing personal information on-device, or at least giving the user options to control it. As shown in my pi-hole, my Apple devices send way less requests to tracking and data harvesting domains compared to Microsoft and Google/Android products.
bitpush•4mo ago
Isnt that just the APIs retrying when blocked?
JohnFen•4mo ago