AIBU to ditch the smartphone

[Butterlover1]

I'm thinking of ditching my smartphone, I spend way too much time tapping away on it. The tipping point was my youngest telling me that if you spend 20 mins a day every day doing something it amounts to a year if your life when you're 75. I spend a lot more than 20 mins a day flicking through junk that really adds nothing to my life!

Does anyone have any experience of getting rid of their smartphone? Did it work?

I'd like to keep calls, text, WhatsApp, Google maps and emails but nothing else. Not sure if it's possible to keep that amount of functionality though.

Looking online there seems to be a lot of "dumbphones" on the market, I wonder if there's a growing market for people wanting to get rid of their smartphones.

I would love to ditch mine and I plan to as soon as I change jobs. It’s hard though as my entire family life runs off this device!

I'd like to keep calls, text, WhatsApp, Google maps and emails but nothing else. Not sure if it's possible to keep that amount of functionality though.

You need a smart phone for anything that requires the internet- WhatsApp, Google Maps and email.

My husband ditched his smartphone last year and doesn’t regret it. His phone does everything you’re looking for except google maps. It’s more of an effort to text the old fashioned way so he doesn’t use WhatsApp anywhere near as much as he used to.

You need a smartphone for what you want.

So what ami mean a whole year - what are you going to do for those 20mins a day everyday until your 75

How about blocking certain apps during certain times so that you can't just aimlessly scroll.

It's usually under digital wellbeing

I spend far too much time on Mumsnet plus I seem to go in a loop of checking emails, Facebook, Instagram etc. bad habit

I have a bank account that can't be operated other than through a smartphone.

I think organisations are increasingly only interacting with smartphones, i.e. interacting via a web-site is no longer the default option. I suppose they want to support fewer platforms, smartphones are more widespread, and smartphones are linked to a person for authentication purposes, so security is easier to manage.

Although avoiding it might work for the time being, I suspect that the number of ways your life will be limited as a result of of going without will only increase with time.

I can't remember which, but other business I interact with, I've logged into my profile on their web site only to be told that the specific thing I want to do (or info I want to see) is only available via their app.

It sounds like what you're wanting is either a dumb phone with some smart phone features (Google Maps, WhatsApp etc) or a smart phone with very minimal functionality. I'm not sure if that's something that would exist, because basically, if you need a phone that can connect to the internet (which you do, if you're wanting emails and Google Maps!) then that would be a smart phone.

Of course, you could just carry on with a normal smart phone and just delete all the apps except the ones you mentioned. You can't faff about on Facebook on your phone if it's not there! Not sure about Android but I've got got an iPhone and you can even delete the preloaded iOS apps from it if you want to.

I did it for a year but went back to a smart phone in the end. The things I struggled with were banking, car parking and not have an easy accessible compact camera.

Second pp. You could just block the other apps. Smartphones are oretty smart and handy if you use them just for smart things like calendars etc.

I block apps at certain times to make myself get up and clean up😂 Stay focused is good app for this.

Just delete the apps you don't want.

Get a dumb phone but have a tablet for apps that need internet

Unfortunately a lot of apps, especially WhatsApp and banking ones, don't work on tablets!

OP, I'd say just delete all the apps you would like to spend less time on, and set a time limit for your browser. Also, if you're using Safari, you can make your browser more 'hostile' to you i.e. less pretty, much more clunkier, by turning off Java Script in settings.

I actually need a smartphone to login to my computer and then to my outlook account.

At work

Just try deleting all the apps from your smartphone except for the ones you've listed that you really need, give it a go for a month and see how it goes

How do you block apps on iPhone? I googled it and just couldn't do it 🤷‍♀️

Keep it but turn it off and leave in a drawer.

Perhaps there is an app thay limits you to a set amount of time each day. Worth looking.