Technology

I used a flip/dumbphone for most of my teenage and high school years.

It's like asking what would make me go back to having a DOS computer and playing Wolf3D after being in full body virtual reality with Half Life Alyx.

I have exactly one game and exactly one 2fa app that I would meaningfully miss out on switching to a dumb pbone, outside of those two things I would genuinely consider it.

I am actively avoiding calls and noone writes to me. If I were to give up a smartphone flip phone would be nearly useless to me

well, I work in IT. So I am required to use apps like Teams for mobile and DUO 2FA in order to authenticate my laptop sessions.

Now, could I use only SMS/email 2FA? Technically yes. And I could just have Teams on my work laptop and have that nearby all the time, but it would be extremely inconvenient. Navigation would also be a big problem. Due to the nature of my job, I frequently have to visit a large number of different sites around my area. Having to open my laptop each time I need to go somewhere, open up a map site like OSM or Google maps to get the directions, print them off or write them down, then follow them manually hoping that I don't encounter random slowdowns or closures in an area I am not familiar with is basically a non-starter for me.

As for personal use, navigation rears its ugly head again. I often will be traveling with friends or family and we decide on a whim to change our destination for dinner or hangouts after based on times, appetites, budgets, closures, etc. Having a map app on my phone makes that easy to do. It would be impossible to do that without it, unless I had a near exhaustive knowledge of my whole city and surrounding suburbs.

Honestly navigation is the #1 thing. Random other stuff comes up, like my mobile password manager Bitwarden, or my various apps like my City's bus/metro app, and my city's parking app. Both of which again, I could make do without, but it would be extremely tough and inconvenient.

I've decided that the happy medium for me is to use as much FOSS phone tech as possible. That way at least the tracking and data harvesting is minimized and I am generally not supporting megacorps.

I use GrapheneOS, with mostly FOSS apps. The proprietary apps I do use are isolated with GOS's special sauce. I use Magic Earth for my navigation, which while not open source, the data sets they use are, and they are not google, and based in the EU, so far better privacy than Google's trash.

I wish I could switch to a flip phone, I've seriously considered it many times over the last several years. But for my lifestyle, it's just not feasible. The best balance for me is to compute ethically on my mobile. I have thought about going for the weekend with just a dumb phone, that might be possible, but I'll have to see.

Dumbphones are ridiculously insecure, and they only support SMS communications which don't have any end-to-end encryption.

Maybe not a dumb phone but I would love to use a phone with an e-ink screen. I know there are some projects about this or some Chinese phones but I haven't met an e-ink phone that I can install a custom ROM yet.

Signal.

I estimate that 60% of my phone use is for audiobooks while driving.

navigation, and living in a country where it's really hard to find books

Web browser. SMS and calling are completely useless. I need a phone so I can access the internet outside. I dont want a dumb 20 year old phone I want a modern phone without the pointless bullshit.

My ideal phone would have a small screen, replaceable battery, shit camera, shit speakers, 5G, two USB C slots and be able to run android apps and be cheap

MFA & Authenticator apps

I for one would go flip from Japan, Korean, manufactured phone. That could tether, mini tablet for maps or email or lemmy

Once upon a time, I set up my phone so I didn't need to look at it: it was basically e-ink and audiobooks.

Then I started adding games and learning apps back (I don't remember why), and now I feel like I'm not going back until e-ink reaches parity with smartphones (refresh rate, cell coverage, near-current OS).

A flip phone/dumbphone would sort of be mutually exclusive with my use case. I use my smartphone nearly exclusively as a lightweight mobile computer for web browsing, SSHing into my server, and messaging over internet (not SMS). I rarely use the "phone" features of my phone, i.e. phone calls and SMS. So I'd be losing out over the features I do use, in favour of features I don't use.

If you're being distracted by your phone and a dumbphone works for you, good on you. I think most people are like me and use their phones as a small mobile computer rather than a phone though, in which case distractions are best handled with one of the many apps/browser add-ons/etc that block websites or apps.

Can I ask how old you are OP? A range is fine

My "smart" phone is rarely used as a telephone. It's set to silent, all notifications turned off, blocks unknown numbers, transcribes voicemail and spends most of the day as a window to the world.

I'm not sure what, if anything, a "dumb" phone would add to my life, except more interruption, more administration to keep contacts up to date, and yet another device to charge and maintain.

I will switch to a dumb phone or even a pager for sms and phone calls the day i can offload all the rest to a VR headset i wear all day everyday XD

All I really need is calls, sms, a solid browser and some more robost messaging apps like signal and matrix/element - I'm a prime candidate for PostmarketOS if we ever get a stable piece of hardware. I have an old oneplus 6 that I've played with it on, its so close. If a flip phone could master that today, sure

I do use tap to pay, but meh I dont think I would miss it and android auto in my car could easily just be a bluetooth audio connection

Not at all. It's really hard to live without the practical features of a smartphone, like web browsing and maps. What I need is privacy, not to throw it all away for a dumbphone.

I believe a lot of the benefits you claim dumbphones provide are all caused by abandoning social media. There's nothing wrong with technology, it's just social media. You don't need to use a dumbphone just to escape social media.

My understanding is that flip phones only do calls and sms ?
So I never call or text.. Only thing I use is an XMPP client, web browser, youtube music (until I replace that with selfhosted) and would use maps (but right now I broke the GPS on my phone so not that ...)

So I don't think I could use a flip phone, mostly because none of these applications except maybe music work on a flip phone ? Webbrowser needs a full sized screen...

I thought about switching, but instead I uninstalled social media apps and started using it more like an e-reader/MP3 player/messenger. It's worked pretty well! Been reading a ton in the last year. I may be addicted to fanfiction now though.

I tried a lot of things to keep my phone/screen usage down.l, including a dump phone. One day I got this brilliant idea to shut my phone off. That was way more efficient than any of the tricks I tried. When I need it for something I turn it on. I've since removed most fun apps from the thing.

I still have one game that I play, Lemmy, RSS and web browsers. Apart from those it's mostly a bureaucracy machine with messaging, email, banking, MFA, work stuff, maps, lots of apps for managing tickets (it's actually ridiculous), life trackers for some board games. Music, audiobooks and podcasts.

The smart phone is a convenient device that makes my life easier. I don't whis to handicap myself when I can just turn the phone off instead. I also like to leave the phone at home if for instance I'm going to a party at a well known location.

Really only a handful of things:

1. navigation while traveling - don't need it much, if at all at home, but I travel often enough for work that losing that capability would be painful.

2. MFA - authenticator apps are the most convenient way to do MFA. SMS/email are terrible options for this and should only be used if there is absolutely no other option.

3. Access to the internet while away from home, both while traveling and while out and about

4. Music playback in the car

5. Communication - most of my friends don't use SMS/voice to talk, instead preferring Discord or Signal

Basically everything else I do on my phone could be done from a more proper computer with minimal inconvenience.

I personally dont think you need to switch to a dumb phone to get those benefits, smartphones themselves arent what's causing issues its what you're using. You want less distraction just stop using those apps or turn off push notifications.

The benefits of having a full-featured computer in my pocket are just too many for me to ditch it permanently if I have a choice. While it's certainly able to distract me if I let it, I don't think I've ever had it disrupt my sleep (aside from late night phone calls).

I think it's better for most (and potentially easier) to keep to the smartphone and just better control the applications that are on it and the notifications that they raise to make sure it isn't overly distracting you. This may require disabling certain pre-installed apps (e.g. Facebook is one I always disable and just interact with via browser when I want to). Another pattern to follow is adding barriers to the things that distract you most so it takes a little more effort to interact with your distractions. Hank Green's Focus Friend app that got popular recently is an example of that -- placing an emotional barrier on getting distracted when you need to focus.

But ultimately, we all need to do what's best for ourselves. Everyone's suceptibility to distraction is different and if a dumbphone is what works best for you, then by all means, go with that for as long as it's useful.

what would need to change for you to actually give a flip phone a try?

For me to start using my phone as the main way of my computing needs and entertainment needs. Which I don't. I only use it to send messages and read when my laptop is not in my hands. So I essentially have a not-so-smartphone, not-so-dumbphone.

I am more curious about this section:

bureaucracy or banking apps force me to use it

Does it actually happen? How so? I never had any bank or anything else force me to use a phone, so I am having hard time imagining that. So I am genuinely curious about this portion of your message.

2FA app. 2FA via SMS is incredibly insecure.

Map and translation apps a close second.

you couldn't pay me to go backwards in time, sorry!

see I was around before the age of the smartphone. growing up, I thought my cassette Walkman was the most revolutionary thing ever. and when PDAs were new, I would dreaammm about everything being on one electronic device.

smart phones have given me a freedom that younger me never had.

i no longer need to carry a notebook/memobook around, because I have powerful software on my phone that not only let's me note-take, but index and SEARCH my own notes. from my pocket.

i don't need to carry the 3 novels im reading at the moment because they're on the ereader app in my pocket.

contacts, games, all my news sources, photos, videos, all my media.

to me, this is still revolutionary tech and it has only improved my life

i think we are seeing a rise now of adults who were raised as iPad kids who never had to carry all their shit around the way us older individuals have. so they naturally would want to get away from it because they've known no different and they never had to live another way before that point.

its an understandable mentality from that one standpoint. but no, I will never give up my smart phone. i understand the reasons for those that do, but some of us don't really want to go backwards.

Who even makes phone calls today? Not me. I need a device that does everything but phone calls more than I need a device that only does voice.

I’ve lived through the cell phone invention, to flip phones, to smartphones. They were terrible back then and I doubt that’s changed now.

Now, I do understand the reason why you moved back to one. For me, I just got aggressive about notifications and turned off most of them. I stopped social media tied to friends and family and am selective about what I’m on and for how long. Takes more personal willpower (or whatever) but you do get used to it in the long run and feel better.

No way. Life is way better with smart phones. Tap to pay, maps, always having a camera, always having my notes, working as a mobile hotspot, controlling my home security system. 25 other things.

This stuff used to be so much harder. I’m not going back.

I will freely admit there are some dangerous addictive and invasive aspects to it also. I’m ruthless about what apps I will grant permissions to. And I don’t browse the App Store getting tempted by their promises.

I think the appeal of our phones not having to be a computer and not needing all the same rigor and paranoia and extra steps of a computer was really exciting. But it hasn’t turned out to be true. So now I treat it like a computer and approach everything with that level of skepticism. And also treat it like the gateway to capitalism that it is and I am skeptical of anything that’s trying to take my data or money. I think with the right attitude it’s a net positive device in my life

I don't use the phone part of my smartphone much, so thie idea of a dumbphone has no real appeal for me.