I have never owned a smart phone. AMA

[EuclidianGeometryFan]

I have never owned a smart phone. I don't think it is worth the money.
I use a laptop to access the internet.

Do you have children OP? I’m only asking because the idea of being smartphone free is very appealing but I couldn’t do it as I use it a lot to keep in touch with my DC via WhatsApp etc.

Obviously you’d need to double check everything and shop around,
but this one here has unlimited texts, 300 mins and 3gb of data - which given your currently using none would be more than enough!

How do you take pictures and do you never need to share them?

We are a 2 phone family, DH refuses to have a smartphone so has an old Nokia which I think cost about £15 several years ago. At the moment he is coordinating suppliers and tradesmen on a building site. They can phone him to speak or message and they send their bills by email. Online banking is done at home on the iPad.

The big difference I can see is DH Nokia battery lasts for ages, my iPhone runs down even if I hardly use it.

How old are you?

Do you feel better than us

That is another thing.
Many decades ago, I worked for someone when mobile phones were fairly new (not even smartphones). I asked him "so how often do you have to charge the battery? Once a week or so?". He laughed, and replied it had to be charged every night.
I decided there and then not to bother. Who wants another thing you have to remember to do every single day?
Of course, I now do have a mobile dumbphone, but charge it about once a week as it is not used much.

A few people have asked questions I have already answered. I won't be repeating myself.

Not morally superior, but I like not being addicted in the way I see others are.

do you have any friends abroad? I wouldn’t easily stay in contact with friends that have moved without WhatsApp.

decided there and then not to bother. Who wants another thing you have to remember to do every single day?
takes me one second to shove in the cable and gives me so much more ease of life with my banking, camera, maps, be able to use WhatsApp, for me remembering a one second cable plugin is far easier than having to remember to print and take maps, a separate camera etc when out.

If I take my phone on a walk it’s usually to act as a clock & a camera - maybe to check route if necessary but I usually switch it to airplane & leave it on that until I’m home. That usually works.

Maybe I’m an outlier. But I’m not addicted to my phone, I don’t have social media (apart from mn…which is not the same imo) I can watch intricate movies, hold conversations and I read books a lot.

How do you do two factor authentication?

They’ve recently beefed up security where I work so that getting into the system requires getting an authenticator code via an app on your phone.

I actually have no idea what would happen if someone said they didn’t want to have a smartphone.

Interesting! I sort of both love and hate the idea of not having one. I'm definitely addicted to it (especially MN). The only person I know who doesn't have one is my nearly 80yo mother. She has always been a total technophobe though. Sorry - this is an AMA and I haven't asked a question yet . I will think of one...

I could have written this. Just been on holiday and 2 of us out of a group of about 30 didn't have a phone and the rest were amazed and couldn't understand how we lived our lives. I did take a tablet which I only used in my room and a couple I met said they were going to do the same and now are going to do the same at home as they found time to see what was going on around them.

Doesn’t make sense to me. You seem to think you’re saving money and everyone else is spending loads but we’re not. Times have moved on and it’s a fiver a month and around £50 for the initial outlay for the phone.

To have a decent camera, the ability to use maps and check public transport and traffic times in real time in your pocket is a bloody bargain.

Not to mention making the money back in savings from various apps. The amount of times I’ve been somewhere and thought ooh, they do Blue Light or Meerkat or in app discounts, I’ve saved thousands. And that’s not an exaggeration.

We aren’t all addicted, I often forget where I’ve put my phone and it’s always on silent with no notifications. You don’t sound very savvy OP!

I am of the opinion that if your employer needs you to have a piece of equipment to do your job, they need to supply the equipment. Especially if they are making a change since you started your employment.
They could at a pinch require all new employees to supply their own smartphone, but I don't think they can require this of existing employees.
It would be interesting to hear what happened if they did try to insist.

People, like the OP, can be selective - it's not that difficult.

I'll admit I do have a smartphone, but for instance I don't do banking from it (I use a PC or tablet for that).
I use What's App, but barely any groups (the main one that I'm in I had to mute, because it's so freaking annoying; I would never in a million years join a "family" group).
No Tiktok.
No NHS app, because I never need it.
Don't use for driving, because my car has a built in sat nav.
Don't listen to music, because I hate earphones/headphones.

So I think we can all make choices that at least help us to be less dependent on our phones.

I've never lost or broken a phone. I would feel quite cut off from everything without it as I am out of the house about sixty hours a week. It enables me to do a lot of life admin at lunchtime as well as providing music and podcasts and entertainment like Scrabble etc. Mine doesn't seem very expensive tbh as it's an android.

Presumably nothing would happen because most people have one and if the 1% that didn’t was that fucking difficult over such a tiny outlay they’d just roll their eyes and pay for one. Whilst marking their card.

Can someone tell me what smart phones are £50 and are they any good?

I missed it because your age was the last line on a longer post, it wasn’t deliberate.

Sorry for missing that you do have DC.

How often are you in touch with them? Do you phone them/they phone you?

I’m in touch with my adult DC frequently via WA and without it, we’d have much less contact.

The Samsung Galaxy’s and the Xiaomi (maybe spelt wrong) are good, the cameras are brilliant. And if you’re just using it for money saving apps etc then you’ll end up in profit!

It’s cheaper to have a smart phone than to not have one these days if you do it right. Wait until Prime Day or Black Friday and they’ll be down to £50 or less