Ditch Smartphone; Feel More Human

Just Because It's Not a Smartphone Doesn't Mean It's Dumb

This week, I interviewed my friend Steve who recently chose to exchange his smartphone for a flip phone. (Click here to see a photo of Steve playing the guitar during our wedding ceremony!)

“I don’t like to call it a dumb phone,” he says, “because I want people to respect my choices.”

He first started thinking about the effects of digital devices at work. As a psychotherapist and clinical social worker, he’s worked with many patients who suffer from anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and other forms of psychological ailments. In this work, he has found that uncertainty often causes distress, and its his job to help clients understand what triggers their stress and how to respond to it in a healthy way.

“They’re looking for anything to put out the fire,” he says during our interview. And often, they turn to their phones or the internet to deal with feelings of acute suffering, social anxiety, and isolation. According to Steve, this solution provides a quick fix, but ultimately “robs them of long-term clarity and the ability to find sustainable solutions.”

Steve would consider himself “technology dependent” but not addicted. He always made an effort to be self-conscious while using his phone so that he wouldn’t simply turn to it while he was feeling aimless or bored. His favorite app on his smartphone was YouTube; he’d use it in the morning when he was home alone or during breaks at work.

“I realize now that I wanted people around, I wanted to hear human voices. I’d watch videos of real people in the real world thinking that it might bring me closer to someone, but I wasn’t really attaining the intimacy that technology promised me. Or, sometimes I’d experience intimacy but then I’d be hit with the whiplash of aloneness, which had only been staved off for a moment.”

He started talking to friends and colleagues about extracting himself from technology’s grip and ditched his smartphone. His idea was met with a lot of enthusiasm. But when he finally went through with it, he was surprised to get a wholly different reaction. Instead of celebrating his departure from the tech rat race, these same people were horrified. Some of them seemed to grieve this loss as if they were losing their ability to community with Steve completely, or losing a certain piece of him. “How will I send you articles?” one friend asked. Steve tried to convince them that they could still be in touch, perhaps talk more instead of texting. But overall, he felt deflated by the reaction he received. Didn’t these people consider themselves progressive humanists? And yet, they couldn’t conceive of an existence without their smartphone.

“We’ve been tricked and tricked quickly,” Steve says.

Lots of people blame their jobs for being unable to downgrade their phones, especially in the mental health field where clients might be in sensitive or even life-threatening situations. “Our phones are a part of our tool belt,” he explains, “and instant communication is very common.” But when you’re in multiple conversations happening simultaneous, it can really start weigh a person down.

Even without his smartphone, Steve makes sure that he is still reachable to his clients. “I’ve had the courage to tell clients that I’m not always on my phone,” he says. “I tell them what they can expect and what they can’t, so they can have realistic expectations around our communication. I use a desktop for email. I can call and text.”

“I tell them: ‘Let’s emphasize pre-planning.’”

Before downgrading to a flip phone, Steve knew that he would have to get more organized without a smartphone to fall back on. This means planning his bike rides before leaving the house because he won’t have a GPS or Lyft to save him from a bind. He asks for phone numbers before going to meet someone so he can call in case he’s late or lost.

Without a smartphone to rely on, he’s had to get more creative when it comes to promoting his music. “With Bandcamp and Soundcloud, a lot of people become bedroom recording artists,” he says. “If they didn’t have those platforms, they’d have to do more live performances.” Which is exactly what Steve intends to do. He plans to grow his fan base with less online marketing, although he’s not completely opposed to it. He plans on uploading his music online, connecting with fans through an email list, but also doing more live shows, selling hard copies of his music at neighborhood music shops, and designing merchandise like shirts and stickers.

In his new flip phone existence, Steve says that he’s more involved in life — the good and the bad. He’s reading more books and finding it a breath of fresh air to learn about the news in a way that’s not cherry-picked for him by apps. He’s discovering local music and connecting with friends in real life. He’s working on his own music instead of watching other musicians do their thing on YouTube. Rather than looking for things to do on Facebook events, he’s asking people: “Do you know anything that’s going on tonight?” He’s started approaching strangers who look like they might share interests with him and striking up conversations. “It’s anxiety-producing but it becomes an art.” He’s also attended a protest and joined a singing group — and he’s hungry to go out and do more of these things.

“I used to use my phone to fantasize.”

“Fantasizing is pleasant, but actual learning isn’t. Learning is not glamorous. It’s frustrating. But I can say 100% that not having a smartphone has forced me to look for what’s meaningful in life.”

Without his phone to distract him, he finds that he has more time to think about the things that happened in his day. This means also sitting with discomfort and uncertainty in both little and big ways, which can have a positive effect on his psyche in the long run. According to research on anxiety, we often don’t give our body the time to acclimate and deescalate from stressful situations, meaning that it builds up in our system, leading to ailments connected with chronic stress.

According to Steve, we as a society have become addicted to the accruing of knowledge and information, which has therefore cheapened its quality as well as the way we share it with each other. “There’s a saturation of thought,” Steve believes. “We are outsourcing our own experience by receiving information. Rather than taking part actively, we are listening to intellectual and philosophical takes on isolation and intimacy.”

“It’s all kind of a hoax,” Steve says. “What does it mean to know the things you know now? What values is it attached to? You can do a lot of things with the information you have — including nothing. Go out and do something.”

Having his “dumb phone” has taught Steve more about taking part in community, making meaningful connections, and exploring his own individuality and philosophy of life. Our experiences have been dampened by our addiction to devices, and it takes a concerted commitment to rise above it.

“I feel more human now,” Steve says, “and I appreciate that feeling.”

If you or anyone you know has a "dumb phone," please have them email me at carmella.guiol@gmail.com. I'd love to hear your stories!