A quick post today because Flip Phone February has begun. It is Day 2 and my dopamine levels are sinking by the hour from the lack of colorful notifications brightening my otherwise hum-drum life.
Yesterday Kashmir Hill a journalist for the NY Times, the inspiration for me to tackle Flip Phone February, wrote a follow-up to her article about quitting her smartphone for a month - or at least giving it the old college try. Her new article, “A Practical Guide to Quitting Your Smartphone” features my Reddit community, along with other dumb phone users who have adopted the pared-down devices to some success.
The community is growing and there’s a lot of good feedback and discussion about the logistics of getting set up. I imagine that will shift into, I’m so bored I can’t take it anymore, but I guess we shall see. Feel free to join even if you’re just dumb phone-curious. There are some good pointers on how to make your smartphone less enticing.
I am still traveling with my smartphone until Sunday when I hope to get my Light Phone that is being delivered in LA. Until then I have deleted Gmail, Instagram, and a couple of other big notification apps that I knew would tempt me, but then had to add Gmail back because it uses two-step authentication to sign in on my laptop. This morning I am setting my phone to gray scale so it's even less fun to use.
My whole goal is to get less payoff from using it until I have my dumbphone set up. Already yesterday I was running errands and found myself thinking about checking my email and my Instagram. When I finally checked messages on my computer when I got home, it was like drinking a tall glass of water after being in the desert for two weeks. Delicious.
In response to this new stimulus-free life, the universe is offering me eye candy galore in the form of not one, not three but FIFTEEN rainbows on my drive from LA to SF. I hilariously can’t even enjoy them now that my phone is gray-toned, but I love knowing that they are there.