> Your post seems a bit "I couldn't use my phone responsibly so I got rid of it", which is fine...
I was perfectly fine with my smartphone, I had it greyscale, heavily restricted in terms of what was installed, etc. It wasn't a particular problem... but at that point, neither was it a particular benefit. Battery life was "a few days at best," it was large and expensive, and I tend to enjoy playing in the weeds of "What's possible?" vs "What's the default?"
As I didn't know anyone who was carrying a feature phone instead of a smartphone, I set out to figure out what that looks like, with the constraints of "I don't want to annoy other people too badly with my choices" - so the first attempt, a Bananaphone, went out quickly because it couldn't do MMS based group texting. The Flip IV handles that, if not well, then "in a way that doesn't irritate other people, mostly." It doesn't render any emojis, but I'm fine with that.
By "point in my life where I can do this," I mean that people around me simply expect me to have oddly broken or limited computer systems and communications systems, so if I'm off in some weeds or another, it's no particular surprise. I don't need 100% reliably daily comms, people don't expect me to respond instantly, and everyone knows that if something's on fire, use the phone feature of the cell system and I'll pick up. Assuming my phone is nearby.
I hate what modern smartphones have become, and I'm fairly vocal about that. I think that they've turned into expensive, human-toxic bits of ewaste looking for a place to happen, and that they've been the primary enablers of the always-on surveillance capitalism systems we see today, to such great harm to humanity. To then continue using them, despite "Well, yeah, but I turned off notifications...", is a form of hypocrisy I try to avoid in life as much as I can. I can be as right as the day is long about the benefits of a vegetarian, low meat, or vegan diet, but if I'm talking to people about it while chowing down on a bacon double cheeseburger, I can reasonably expect nobody to listen to me. The same goes for tech habits. I can't rail against smartphones and social media, on smartphones and social media, and expect much beyond a well deserved eye roll.
I at least try to live out my convictions regarding technology, which means that things like the blog post I linked above are hosted on a server I own and have colo'd locally.
And I'll entirely admit that there exist a small number of features I've not found ways to replace a smartphone for, so I use my legacy device for those and only carry it with me when I need access to a particular building that has smartphone based locks (I don't like them, but I didn't install them, other people like them, and they don't have an easily usable key backup), or if I'm doing Part 107 drone operations for some reason or another.
I was perfectly fine with my smartphone, I had it greyscale, heavily restricted in terms of what was installed, etc. It wasn't a particular problem... but at that point, neither was it a particular benefit. Battery life was "a few days at best," it was large and expensive, and I tend to enjoy playing in the weeds of "What's possible?" vs "What's the default?"
As I didn't know anyone who was carrying a feature phone instead of a smartphone, I set out to figure out what that looks like, with the constraints of "I don't want to annoy other people too badly with my choices" - so the first attempt, a Bananaphone, went out quickly because it couldn't do MMS based group texting. The Flip IV handles that, if not well, then "in a way that doesn't irritate other people, mostly." It doesn't render any emojis, but I'm fine with that.
By "point in my life where I can do this," I mean that people around me simply expect me to have oddly broken or limited computer systems and communications systems, so if I'm off in some weeds or another, it's no particular surprise. I don't need 100% reliably daily comms, people don't expect me to respond instantly, and everyone knows that if something's on fire, use the phone feature of the cell system and I'll pick up. Assuming my phone is nearby.
I've written up more on the experiments here: https://www.sevarg.net/2022/01/22/kaios-bananaphone-flip-iv-...
I hate what modern smartphones have become, and I'm fairly vocal about that. I think that they've turned into expensive, human-toxic bits of ewaste looking for a place to happen, and that they've been the primary enablers of the always-on surveillance capitalism systems we see today, to such great harm to humanity. To then continue using them, despite "Well, yeah, but I turned off notifications...", is a form of hypocrisy I try to avoid in life as much as I can. I can be as right as the day is long about the benefits of a vegetarian, low meat, or vegan diet, but if I'm talking to people about it while chowing down on a bacon double cheeseburger, I can reasonably expect nobody to listen to me. The same goes for tech habits. I can't rail against smartphones and social media, on smartphones and social media, and expect much beyond a well deserved eye roll.
I at least try to live out my convictions regarding technology, which means that things like the blog post I linked above are hosted on a server I own and have colo'd locally.
And I'll entirely admit that there exist a small number of features I've not found ways to replace a smartphone for, so I use my legacy device for those and only carry it with me when I need access to a particular building that has smartphone based locks (I don't like them, but I didn't install them, other people like them, and they don't have an easily usable key backup), or if I'm doing Part 107 drone operations for some reason or another.