iPhone dumbphone

Sorry basic question.

You can still access all the social media from the browser eh?

I find that regular wilderness backpacking trips in places without cell service accomplish this kind of reset in a fun, social (bring friends!) way that provides plenty of exercise and fresh air, with the added bonus of being a reasonably "normal" explanation/antidote to the social pressure of those "you're doing what??? I need to be able to reach you!"-type conversations.

There's the added bonus that being fully out of cell service effectively removes the ability to cheat altogether, though it seems inevitable at this point that satellite data will be invading the backcountry before long.

I switched to a candy-bar style dumb phone for a month and did something similar. My list was pretty much the same as the one in the article with a few small changes.

The most jarring was probably maps - other things like email, messaging etc could be delayed until I could reach a computer but not knowing how to get somewhere right now was problematic and required planning in advance.

I usually kept my smart phone in my car and did a sim swap on the occasion that I really needed it.

That would be a great idea if I were on vacation in a cabin in the woods. But realistically, I need my phone for just about everything I do on a daily basis, from payments, to navigation, to communicating with friends and family, and logging into accounts for work.

One aspect of no phone is how to deal with payments. Specifically UPI payments in India. These are QR code based payments and it is getting more difficult to pay by cash at many locations.

Right next to that is OTPs from financial institutions.

I just have all notifications turned off permanently.

"But what about..?"

Yes, even that.

I'm curious, have you tried this? Would love to learn what you jotted down.

There’s an even more straightforward exercise.

Step 1: delete your social media

There is no step 2.

Way too much friction. I don't have the luxury of going "off the map" for a week.

> I need Jira, Slack, and GitHub during work hours for example.

My question, why do you need them on your phone during work hours? Why aren't you using a desktop/laptop/something else?

> It just wouldn't work for me. I need Jira, Slack, and GitHub during work hours for example. But I don't want them during non-work hours.

Not an iPhone, but my solution to this is LineageOS + microG, where I just disable push notifications when I'm not working, or enable them for just the few select apps if I am expecting some messages there. The price for this is that I don't always receive the social app message when it is sent, but that's fine by me.

> I need Jira, Slack, and GitHub during work hours for example.

So do I, but I certainly don't need them on my phone. For the longest time the only work app I had on my phone was some 2FA thing. Then asked them to either buy me a phone or a yubikey. I got a yubikey (and my phone complete free from anything work related).

As of iOS 18 you can add any app you want into assistive access now! It has been going pretty well with Beeper on my end.

I tried Assistive Access and I don’t think I even made it a day.

Most of these attempts to simplify things are putting idealism at odds with reality.

I like Assistive Access, but my biggest issue is that you have to click like 100 times to read any notification. No option to just be able to read a text from the home screen. I found it was even more friction (for my use) to unlock my phone constantly than the regular format.

Huge, thanks, somehow missed it. Smart TV UIs are begging for this mode too, for users to whom aesthetic is irrelevant.

> people with cognitive disabilities

Does… does my phone addiction and inability for self-control qualify as this?

Agreed. Many years ago I set up a personal email address for that very reason, i.e. one through which I only expect personal 1-to-1 correspondence, and which I only hand out to family & friends, never to companies (which easily get hacked and/or one day decide to reuse your email address for their newsletter).

Gmail has ben doing this for years, automatically. And it works very well. I think a lot of people don't know the feature exists, though

This is exactly why I pay for hey.com email. Every new address is screened in and I can turn on notifications for specific addresses or domains. I have notifications on just a tiny handful of addresses and it's perfect for me.

I've gone from ignoring my email for weeks at a time and fighting with spam to quickly checking my email every day now.

If google weren’t such an ass about your data you could download everything and run some queries to see how you should create your rules

What is sending you the most emails? What emails did you actually care about?

Yes yes, you can do this technically speaking, but good luck actually trying - everything is so slow and old emails with attachments will simply not download - they won’t load even in the UI sometimes

For me, I did what you did except with a new email address

That address has notifications and they are reserved pretty much for just people - I don’t use it for websites at all - I only give to people whose email id like to see right away

greyscale is a game changer. i wasn’t a believer until i forced myself to use it, but it really turns off the appeal. have you ever seen someone just staring at their phone and flipping through the home screen(s)?

Wow I'm the creator of Foqos, thanks for the shoutout <3

Author here: It's powered by Instant, the company I helped found.

The counter is pretty easy to set up.

Here's how it works on the blog:

1. You set up a schema:

https://github.com/stopachka/stopaio/blob/main/src/instant.s...

2. And then use `presence` to write an ActiveCounter:

https://github.com/stopachka/stopaio/blob/main/src/app/Activ...

TBH, it's kind of hard to square "I locked down my phone to have less distractions in my life" with "I put a counter on my page that changes 10 times a second while you're trying to read"

Having an accountabilibuddy definitely helps establish and maintain compliance.

Well, you need a spouse.

You can also use an online time-lock service such as lockmeout.online to store the PIN for ScreenTime or assistive access (even better as it dumb down the UI).

One way to achieve this is to set the interface to monochrome.

Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Color Filters -> Monochrome

It becomes instantly less appealing.

I've been using the same setup as the author for about a year, I can help some.

1. I don't know, never tried this. I do know iCloud backups still work, because I've used them after wiping my phone. But I think you must plug the new phone into your computer and set it up as a managed device before you load the backup, or else parts of the profile might not take.

2. No, it's not. I traded in my old macbook pro for a mac mini back in May. I was able to use Apple Configurator on the new mac mini to change the profile on my phone. There is one caveat though -- the phone is still technically supervised by the old mac, so you have to confirm the profile by going into the phone's settings. Using the original, you just have to plug the phone in and unlock it.

Wow thanks for the shout, I'm the maker of Dumb Phone! Always super nice hearing how much that set up has helped improve their relationship with their phone / tech in general and be more present every day. Thank you!

> Dumb Phone (dp) from App Store to simplify your home into a monochromatic list

I had no idea this was even possible to customize! Thank you.

Pro-tip: On iPhone, iPad, and macOS, you can shut off email notifications for everything except VIPs.

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/08/28/add-senders-vip-mai...

People live different lives

> There is almost no email I get that needs instant action.

Different people get different e-mails.

Also, some people just don't check e-mail otherwise. Why would they? Notifications tell them the 5 times a day they get a new e-mail, so they don't need to manually check their e-mail 2-3 times a day. It actually makes a lot of sense. Notifications mean you never have to check your e-mail.

>I don't understand why people leave email notifications enabled. There is almost no email I get that needs instant action.

People are different and have different use cases and needs.

i don't have them enabled; but, the email address I use for my Android phone and tables is used only for those devices.I've neer used my primary email address on a mobile device. Email can wait until I'm at a computer.

You can set email notifications (or any app) to deliver quietly. I made this change years ago for email and some social apps. You can go through the notifications when you check your phone but aren't distracted with it vibrating on every email.

Email and chat apps are just about the only notifications I keep. I "archive" any unwanted email right from the notification screen, I report as spam anything I don't like. I hate people who have 4 digits in their email bubbles.

I really wish Apple/Google would do something about notifications, use AI for something useful.

"Hey you haven't read any of your 3454 emails, should I disable notifications for Gmail?"

"Hey you're drowning in notifications with your son texting you 2 hours ago, 4 pages down. Should I prioritize him maybe?"

> I don't understand why people leave email notifications enabled.

For me email on the phone uses less than 1% of my screen time during the day.

If I don't get a notification for something, there's a good chance I'll forget to check emails/texts/etc for weeks at a time.

You can probably just use the UPS/FedEx/Amazon apps to get those notifications instead anyway.

I turn it on during job search. Like right now.

The default setting is always king

Uhm. I set the email app to check for mail every 30 minutes. But also I don't get that many messages (and mailinglists and whatnot are filtered away to subfolders that don't trigger the notification) so when I get the notification is for something I actually need.

Apart from that I only have notifications for IM (telegram/whatsapp) and the phone is in constant DND mode (with sound allowed only for calls).

I leave my email notifications on because I don't get that much email, and most email I get is something I want to read.

I don't read my work email at all unless I am specifically looking for something.

"Dear Sir stroke Madam, I am writing to inform you of a fire which has broken out at the premises of..." no, that's too formal

I've spoken to quite a few people that do this which was very interesting, especially how a hard lock has helped them hard reset and start building healthier phone habits

I do this too, and have them set the recover apple id to their own. Been averaging ~1.2 hours per day screentime the last few months (mostly messaging apps).

Basically in "downtime" mode all the time with a few "Always allowed" app. One thing is, you're phone (and it's browser) is pretty damn useless. Overtime you realize that a lot of things you need to lookup don't need to be looked up, etc but it can be frustrating at first.

We are close to the “we should put a warning label on the microwave that don’t dry your cat in it”. At some point it’s not a blog authors responsibility to make you understand that “erase all content” erases all content.

I don't think self control works that way. Every decision you make causes decision fatigue, which means that the things that you encounter constantly that nag at you and take your attention have a serious impact on your day-to-day. Like, say you have the energy to make 1000 decisions throughout the day. That includes dressing well, remembering to do things, eating well, making time for side projects, etc. Say your phone provides 100 times when you have to say 'no, I'm going to make the more difficult decision and not give in to this' each day. Well, that adds up.

I have type 1 diabetes, and there's studies about this on diabetics actually. There's a huge hit to quality of life and specific kinds of burnout attributed to the thousand or so extra decisions we have to make every day to manage our blood sugar. I'd love to get rid of those, but since I can't, I'm particularly sensitive to bullshit that takes my attention or willpower like that. In my experience, people don't live on a spectrum where "I have self control" = Everything that happens to me I make the right decision even if its hard or "I have no self control" = I always make the bad decision. There's always a pool of decisions, and the further you get into the onslaught of decisions the more you're beaten down and the worse your self-control is.

It is perhaps possible to attain a monk-like state where your will is absolute and you never make any compromises (although I doubt it), but since 99.99% of us will never get there, I think there's a lot to be said for cutting out things that nudge us in the wrong direction constantly

In an ideal world, sure, but there can be times where it's better to just lock yourself out.

Maybe breaking out of your phone is just more self-control than you currently possess. Imagine trying to get in shape but you're only allowed to lift 200+ pound weights - you simply aren't strong enough to even make progress, you need an easier task.

Or maybe you just have other priorities in the short-term. I'd love to get to the point where I can easily ignore my phone, but right now my priority is to finish unpacking after a move and getting back into the rhythm of going to the gym. As James Clear says in Atomic Habits: To break out of a bad habit, make it invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying. Locking a phone down to barebones functionality does all three.

Finally, maybe you have a deficit of attention. I've had diagnosed ADHD since I was a child - my level of self control for addicting systems is significantly diminished compared to a "normal" person. Yes, a certain level of this learned behavior: With dedicated effort and practice, I can develop that skill and get better about distractions. However, my baseline is still lower and my progress will be slower than a neurotypical person. Crutches like this help me preserve mental energy for my day-to-day tasks instead of spending a significant portion of my mental energy fighting the urge to check my phone all day every day.

Just my perspective at least. I know everyone is different and I aspire to be the kind of person that doesn't need to employ blockers and safeguards just to ensure I don't end up getting sucked into doomscrolling for 2 hours, but right now I'm working with what I've got.

It’s about setting up systems that help you succeed even if you are not perfect. It’s about facing the fact that you don’t always have enough self control, and minimizing self destruction when that happens.

I guess it’s like when recovering alcoholics, though ideally should just “simply” have self control, in reality it’s about removing booze from your apartment, getting rid of triggers, changing habits, friends, etc.

I totally get that, but for me I'd rather put in controls that make it easy to do the things I want, a la Atomic Habits.

Like, I want to eat healthier. I can try more self-control to not eat the Oreos in the pantry, or I can stop putting Oreos there. Putting guardrails on my devices is just easier to help me live the life I want.

But this is an act of self-control, op is the 'self' setting up the system. The primary target is not compulsive instinct, but time on the phone, but the beauty is that this in turn, will remove the compulsive instinct, because it's brittle. It's like their analogy to eating healthy in the post.

I think it can be starting point for some, then slowly reintroducing the distractions when they build up those muscles.

Feigning victimhood and zero agency is very trendy in certain circles, and you evidently get bonus points for these sorts of performantive theatrics, versus actually adressing the core of the issue.

It's not the phone, it's you...

I've been doing what the author did for about a year using Configurator. I have the browser blocked completely. I found that I could still get around it by sending messages to myself in apps like Messenger and using the built-in browser.

So I ended up using an allow list for internet traffic with nothing allowed, which stopped that. What do you find you need the browser for?

What works for me, and this might not be palatable to everyone, is to intentionally downgrade my phone to a worse experience to add friction. I am currently using an SE 2020 on purpose. This thing overheats like hell, if I try to do anything too intensive with it it starts stuttering like crazy. But that's actually perfect, it's what I want. It naturally reduces my use time because it can get annoying to use.

Something I've recently played with is a very 'dumb' android browser [0] able only to open and share links (and refresh the webpage), nothing else. Since I don't trust myself that I won't just click links from page to page I also configured the webview's client to disable links [1]. From this, you may be able to restrict yourself as much as you can since you could set a whitelist set of links you find 'indispensable'.

[0] https://github.com/rickgram/NoBrowser

[1] https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/views/layout/webapp...

One thing I sense the author is ignoring is the pretty LARGE swath of third party apps that do something of the like but in a much more user-friendly form factor. Most are targeted towards parents and teens, but surely there's no reason you basically couldn't use it on yourself. I'm thinking of things like Qustodio and the like. It should still allow you to massively restrict the iPhone, there's a little bit of friction involved with undoing it -- but not as insane as the entire iPhone reset -- and you can much more easily on the fly make custom changes to it as you go about it. I'd probably spring for something like that if I found screen time or self-control to be an issue before going full-in on something like configurator which I think would be very, very hard to iterate settings with.

The pattern that finally seems to work for me is to use Freedom to block all scrolly crap specifically on mobile. If I want to dig through YouTube or look something up on Reddit that’s fine, but I have to physically go to a machine that’s not always in my pocket.

At least so far I don’t need any of the things I’ve blocked on the go.

I'm a real app minimalist, only basic stuff for day to day living, but the browser is what sucks my life away.

I've tried things like Leechblock, but they don't stick.

The only thing that's really worked is turning the damn thing off and sticking it in a drawer. I managed it for a week once. Hard to keep to though.

A small lock on the browser, something as simple as the math problems some people use to stop their alarm in the morning might be a sufficient stopgap from mindless browser use.

If on Android, you can propably use something like rethinkdns and just block the worst timewasting websites for a while. Once you get used to not accessing reddit, youtube, prawnhub, whatever your poison is, the browser becomes boring again.

I find the mobile web is doing a great job of destroying the addictiveness of the browser. I use an se2 so not terribly old. new reddit doesn't really work at all on it. old reddit just barely. Most other websites seem to hang after trying to load all the adware and never return the full content anymore. Some mobile websites just flat out don't load at all anymore, just a white screen like the phone rolled over and gave up.

Hacker news is about the only website that works. But, once you find a couple threads you are interested in you are rate limited from replying before long and that frustration kicks me off it until days later potentially.

install the browser if you need it, uninstall it when youre done

I vaguely remember someone here saying what worked for them was to add a fair amount of artificial lag to browsing, so that loading a page would actually be painfully slow.

He mentions this, says it’s too easy to circumvent.

He needs uber. He needs google maps. Mostly it's not just about looking up information, it's about functionality.

They have menus. Every place I’ve been to (post-Covid) that tries to force the “use-your-phone” thing brought me a menu when I asked and said I didn’t have my phone.

> Your browsing can begin at certain pre-defined entrypoints, like a news aggregator or a QR code

I would definitely use this.

Author here:

Ultimately all of these apps were essential for me. "Your Internet Provider" is a funny one -- for some reason XFinity kept failing to charge my credit card. I would come home to find an angry girlfriend without WiFI. I had to install the app to keep some tabs on it, until their autopayment bug was fixed.

One thing I like about this setup is that you can decide which apps are 'essential' for you.

A dumb phone should really be like... 3 retro style games, calculator, sms and calling.

I'd argue you can just stick to default iPhone apps and be fine.

Can’t you click the “ignore limit” button when trying to open a restricted app though?

Looks very interesting. The price is not good. I mean, we have to do it for 4 fones, that is 120 dollars per year, which is a lot of money, not in it's own, but it ads up with other subscriptions. The trial is too short, i think a months will be better.

Just checked out Foqos -- have seen others mention it in the thread too. Great work!

Wow! It is crazy how much money people will to pay for such problems.

I restrict myself from distractions by disabling hosts via custom rules in my nextdns account. It is enough and free.

Unfortunately some of us use Instagram specifically to keep in touch with people (IG DMs). and Meta does not seem to want to split off the messaging from the main app the same way they did with FB messenger for some reason (I would love it if they did). For Twitter, some of us need it for work as well (lots of interesting AI research published directly to Twitter). Reddit is definitely pure entertainment yeah. But there are nuances.

This was a huge one for me. Remember spending so much time posting and reading twitter and insta feeds when I was in car with my wife. Totally different now. We talk and converse about what's going on with our kids, stuff at work, its way better. We both feel much more connected.

I also turned off all notifications from all my apps, period end of story. My battery lasts for days and its not completely distracting. Made a huge difference in my ability to focus.

You also accumulate screen time if you are using navigation while commuting, etc. I easily rack up 2 hours daily just from driving to my workplace and back home, so there are definitely some "passive" ways to increase those numbers.

I think focusing on numerical stats here is also a bit of a problem and while making these guardrails might help some people but the main issue should be addressed (overconsumption/addiction).

I wonder by reducing the screen time of the phone, how the screen time of the other devices (computer/tv/etc) changed.

Seems way too common. People pull out their phone at every commercial break, lull in conversation, or stoplight. People's attention span is cooked.

Author here: I think this could work great for parental controls. A really determined kid with a laptop or the willingness to factory reset their iphone could get around it. But outside of this I _think_ it's worth trying.

Are you using a desktop or laptop? I used to carry my laptop around with me to use whenever wherever as designed, and found myself always using it. Setting aside a dedicated desk space where I limit the use of the laptop made it much easier to just think of it as desktop and less mobile. Now, using it feels like I'm at work, and it is much easier to walk away from it.

Finding other things to do when bored instead of opening a browser is key. You're going to fill the time with something, so you have to find the something else.

There was K9 Web Protection but it was ended in 2019 by Symantec. It was perfect because after setting up password you had to wait one week to unblock it back again :)

You can try LeechBlock. It works as plugin in all browsers.

First thirty seconds are the worst for will :)

So it is better to ask a relative/friend/parent/spouse to set up a password for you - then you cannot unblock the sites back again without them.

What worked for me: working in person with others.

I found that it's much harder for me to procrastinate on my laptop when I am working with peers. The repeated focus time on the laptop during work hours 'conditioned' me to use it for work more.

Switch to a desktop!

Write your own hosts file and block all websites you don’t want to visit.

pomodoro

No.

Source: Used to do enterprise Apple MDM for a living.

I think it only disable the icon, not underlying frameworks, etc

I have App Store disabled on my kids iPad and it does disable updates. I have to manually re-enable it and install updates every few days.

I also searched for this and couldn’t find an answer.

> lockdown mode

That's interesting. I didn't know about lockdown mode. Noting!

> I've installed hosted-profiles (.mobileconfig) files without factory-reset, curious why didn't you go for that route?

Afaik the only way to disable the App Store is to go through this schlep of a factory reset and having Configurator prepare the phone for 'supervision'.

You can install mobileconfig files without factory-reset, but I've found some settings won't "take" until the phone is supervised.

> installing a configuration profile isn't supported with lockdown mode

You can disable lockdown mode, install the .mobileconfig, enable lockdown mode again. Which is what I did with https://apple.nextdns.io

If you use iCloud, you should still be able to get back your contacts, photos, etc.

Oh, that's a cool idea! I think that would work. You would still need to connect to your laptop twice, to switch the profiles. Outside of that it could work great! Would have to think about what would make for a good 'travel across borders' blueprint.

andoff[1] works well. I use it to lock down DNS settings to nextdns to block all the sites I want. Then I use lockmeout[2] to lock opening andoff to change the settings.

Also there is limitphone[3], but it has less settings and is easier to uninstall than andoff, but works via the same mechanism.

1: https://docs.andoff.one/ 2: https://www.teqtic.com/lock-me-out 3: https://limitphone.com/

https://github.com/tstromberg/quietude is how I manage my Pixel phone as well as my kids; I begin with “quietude.sh disable all”, but usually re-enable maps.

It takes a similar approach to the OP - changing restrictions requires a USB cable and a computer.

On LineageOS 22 this is what I did:

* Remove Jelly browser with `adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 org.lineageos.jelly`

* Disable F-Droid so you can't install another browser on a whim with `adb shell pm disable-user org.fdroid.fdroid`

Author here: I think so! A reader shared with me that they used the adb cli to remove all the apps they didn't want, including the Play Store.

are you only trying to access Insta DM's instead?

Is it possible on Android? How? I would love for this ability to exist

I find google searches distracting, I can only imagine what an AI chat must be like. I use a flip phone.

Strangely enough, I found Claude and ChatGPT crucial to making all this work.

In the essay:

> Whenever I need some information, I can just ask my LLM, and it can give me a distraction free summary. It helps the long-tail of weird situations too: for example if someone asks me to take a look at a website, I can ask my LLM to scrape it and summarize the details for me. It’s pretty hard to get distracted this way.

or a twisted way in calling Claude and ChatGPT dumb which I wouldn't disagree with myself

Author here: those already come with the standard iPhone setup.

> 2 extra hours of time he's not using his phone.

Mostly reading. The 2 hours was a win for me, but the thing I appreciated even more was the that I feel less distracted throughout the day.

I remember reading about Ozempic, and how it "turns off the background food noise" that people have. I didn't realize this, but for me I have a "background notifications noise", which this hack has helped reduce.

I just made a similar transition a few weeks ago.

I just often felt like I wasn't making progress on various things I've been wanting to, that I used to do, and for which I kept telling myself I don't have time. And it wasn't difficult to tell where my time was going based on the Screen Time app.

For me, I've drawn the line at endless feeds, which for me, was Reddit and Facebook. And for the first week or two, I was often catching myself in a split-second of boredom just opening up one or the other (just to be greeted by an error message). Now that instinct is gone.

I don't think I was as bad as the people endlessly doom-scrolling through TikTok, but it was certainly bad enough that I felt like I didn't have enough free time to work toward life goals that were outside my work time. And it's a lot better now.

Going back to reading magazines and shampoo bottles in the bathroom?

Yep that is half the job done already!

Came to write something along these lines. I do this for restaurants, and sometimes for the places that refuse to take cash. But I do not have hope that such behaviour will impact the restaurants' policies: it's usually chains or non-owner-ran places that will have a "high-tech" policy and I am not sure if this kind of feedback reaches the decision makers.

But these days (for now) finding another restaurant is easy. The author mentions that his gym requires having a smartphone. Now, that's a much bigger problem.

I am assuming that if you asked, they'd give you a printed menu. You don't have to be difficult about it.

I don't always need the dead tree version of the menu. Those do create extra work for the staff. And I am assuming they need constant replacement. Kids will drop food on them all the time.

Yeah it's definitely annoying. Recently I was at a kiosk for Turkish Airlines, and they _really_ didn't want to print the boarding pass. They wanted to send a text instead.

> Seems like way more work than learning to be disciplined.

Are you disciplined about everything you need/want to be disciplined about? Food, exercise, sleep, reading, work, family... You've got it all dialed to a perfection, yes? If not, why not? It is after all easy to learn to be disciplined.

I don't think the author has to do this. They just prefer to.

Aside from not having a phone, how could someone not have the option?

I really want to thank you for this comment; how it gave a well-needed jolt to my pride and taste for discipline.