Does anyone here live without a smart phone? If yes, how?

[SixSevens]

My phone is making me miserable. I want to go back to my previous life and never doom scroll or use social media again!

Is it possible?

I’m in my 30s and work full time. No kids.

I love audiobooks and podcasts -would need my phone for those.

This is true. But in those days you could phone organisations and they would answer the phone. You could find phone numbers in the phone book etc.

It is hard to manage without at least internet access these days, and pretty hard without using the smart features of a smart phone.

My parents never learned mobile phones. I now manage their NHS Apps for them and my DM's care schedule. because that is how you are now 'expected' to do things.

And much to many other people’s amazement the world has moved on. If you could call places and not be met with a recording of “if you want to do x or y you can now go this through www. Or our new App…” believe it or not, this is easier and I find much easier to track and trace, and takes way less time!

My ex PIL were like this, in one breath they say “aren’t we all high and mighty we don’t need broadband, mobile phones etc and then in the next they are calling asking you to look up flights and book for them and they will give you the cash next week also because well you know…they don’t have internet banking or revolut. 😫

I have a dear friend who is 79, 80 this year

She has no mobile phone, no computer, no Internet, no TV

She listens to the BBC World service on the radio, reads, writes, composes poetry and music, plays the cello, sees friends

She's a wonderful woman but she does struggle with day to day things like Doctors appointments and booking trips

She's highly intelligent but simply cannot understand why the world has moved on and has left her "behind"

No smart phone here. I've never had one. I can't stand them. I can't stand seeing people obsessed by them, being glued to them and missing out on everyday life, moments of quiet, daydreaming, being bored, reading books, thinking, looking out of the window, looking at nature, looking at people, being with people, being an actual human being. You can imagine how I feel seeing children with them. In restaurants, my god... Young couples sitting together in a restaurant, on a date, not talking, both staring into their phones - it makes my heart sink. My DS (9) knows all this and understands. No devices for him, he's a massive reader and would read books for 10 hours a day if he could. I've read to him out loud The Anxious Generation and he agrees that smart phones are horrible for children, he doesn't much like seeing adults buried in them either. If he wants one when he's 18, that'll be up to him, and he can pay for it himself.

I don't need one. I don't need to be constantly connected. I don't need to see my work emails at all times of the day and night. Don't get me started on social media either, which as far as I'm concerned is mis-named and utterly anti social. I have a laptop and am on that plenty of the time, I can do almost anything I need on it. Maps on a phone could be handy, but to be honest I like paper maps and A to Zs. Or just wandering sometimes and getting my bearings by looking. Sometime parking apps cause a bit of bother, but if there's no other option I'll usually just go somewhere else. Anyone who asks me to download an app or similar (NHS...) I just explain that I don't want to (and can't), and it's never been a problem. We went inter-railing around Europe last summer and it was completely fine, we printed out tickets, passes and information in advance (and had copies on my laptop too). I have a variety of different digital cameras that are way better than any on a smart phone.

I have a CAT S22 builder's-type phone with a very simple version of WhatsApp for group information and photos. I've never used the 3G/4G/5G and only connect at home when I have WiFi. I've told people that if they need me, I only check WhatsApp once every day or two, and if urgent please ring me. All works fine. I think I'm the last person I know who doesn't have a smart phone now (though I did briefly meet a person a few years ago who had a land line only and no mobile at all, which was impressive!). No problems at all and I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, particularly, and I can't see that having a smart phone would be anything other than detrimental to my life.

[Note, I do like a simple life, so can see that this might not be to everyone's taste].

But, unsurprisingly, the world has evolved and moved on in that time.

Do you still manage without one?

I seem to need mine for something every single day.

@gldd and yet you post on social media?

This is social media? I consider Mumsnet to be more of an online notice board / discussion forum.

That argument does not hold ground in today's times. People managed well without electric heating too, yet here we are! So this kind of nostalgic analogy makes no sense. While we can live without smartphones if needed, they are certainly practical and necessitated by our lifestyles.

I consider it to be social media. Like FB, X ....not like IG

I've never had a smartphone, absolutely no interest in one. I have a little Nokia 2660 flip for when I'm out and about, and at home use my desktop pc for everything else, which suits me perfectly. I'm retired with no kids, which makes it easier, of course. I wouldn't be able to manage without my pc, that's for sure.

I have a smart phone, but don't really go online with it. Much prefer sitting on my laptop for browsing and makes it easier to limit my time online. I haven't yet found anything I need my smartphone for that I couldn't just do online on a computer. I'm aware this could change in the future, but for now I'm happy as I am.

But the CAT S22 runs an Android OS, runs 4g/bluetooth, so it is a smart phone? Granted a very basic one but still a smart phone by definition.

I look at MN and TikTok but never on my phone. I’m unwell. At times like this it’s good. I was on holiday in remote campsites for a month last summer, often no signal and I didn’t miss it.

I use mine for train tickets, concert tickets and boarding passes (if you Ryanair, you have to use their app to fly).

Do you print everything or not do any of these things?

It's probably possible, but would be pretty inconvenient having to find alternatives for tickets, banking app etc. Would it help to just uninstall the social media/ other doom scroll type apps?

My kid has a 'smartphone' but with almost everything apart from calls removed, so it acts like a dumb phone, while still looking the part. Could you set up something similar for yourself, so you can still have the apps you need, but without the other distractions.

Oooh, I do love a stickler, well done! But, if we're going to stickle, I'd point out that it actually uses Android Go, which is an extremely basic operating system. As I mentioned above, I don't use 3G/4G/5G, have never turned on Bluetooth, and don't use any apps (other than WhatsApp occasionally). By usage - which is the most important thing - and as far as I'm concerned, it's not a smart phone.

Anything like that, as long as I can print it, it's fine. But I haven't used trains or planes in a long time.

Funny, was just showing partner how to do something on his laptop. He's 55 and I'm 49 but I'm much more techn savvy than him. I just said how keeping up with tech as you get older is so important.

So, no, I love my smart phone and would never want to not have one. However, I'm pretty good at setting limits with it and not mindlessly scrolling etc. Really, they're more mini computers aren't they...I rarely use mine to actually ring anyone! Even in work I ring via TEAMS to a phone nowadays.

Even if you couldn't (or didn't want to) print these out, I suppose in theory you could open a tablet or laptop to the page where you have tickets / passes etc, and they could scan that. I've done that for trains before. Granted, it's a little more of a hassle than scanning a small smart phone. But I rarely go anywhere on a plane or train without a bag with my small and very light laptop in it. I suppose that point I'm making is that maybe it isn't completely impossible without a phone? More awkward in these circumstances, perhaps, but not impossible. Then the calculus becomes what level of additional difficulty am I willing to accept to have the benefit of not having a phone. For most people I suppose it isn't worth it, but those clicking on this thread are presumably worried about their phone usage, the effects of having a smart phone, are interested in alternatives.

Separately, are you suggesting that it's impossible to fly on Ryanair without a smart phone with their app on it? Surely that can't be correct. If I booked a ticket, and then printed out the PDF boarding passes, or brought them as PDFs on a laptop screen, they still wouldn't let me fly?! Surely not!

Interesting - I think we could all do with using phones less.

Regarding your last point, I think you could show your laptop/tablet screen at the departure gate for Ryanair but they don't accept printouts any more. I'm not sure what actually happens if you only have a printout, it's a fairly new rule.

Perfectly possible. I have an old-fashioned filp-up phone. I can talk to DW and message the DCs/DGCs and contact the RAC if and when the car breaks down. What more do I need?

I think this is an important point; even those on this thread who don't love smart phones and can recognise their attendant problems, but feel they can manage their usage, that's obviously fine. Children with developing brains who are less able to do this themselves are clearly a much more serious problem.

I do take small issue however with your point about keeping up with tech being so important. In general, yes, I agree with this. I work in a technology-adjacent industry and am conducting scientific computing on a daily basis. That doesn't mean we have to blindly and uncritically accept all major societal technology-driven changes. Aren't we better than that? Can't we think more critically? Just because its technology and its new and Apple / Google / Meta / etc say its the new thing, do we have to adopt it? Let's think critically about what these devices are, what they do, and what their effects on us are before we hand over our lives to them. Ask yourself, who stands to benefit? Do these changes accord with our values, or not? You, and many others, may disagree, but for me, the jury is still out on smart phones.