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| A Screenshot of my iPhone |
Yesterday I decided to streamline and minimalize my iPhone, getting closer to a Light Phone approach. This included:
- Eliminating scrolling apps, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Google News.
- Eliminating color and subtle animations.
- Eliminating pop-ups and notifications.
I even took weather and tides off.
Technically, I did the menu using the free (wonderful if not quite perfect) app called Smile App Launcher. I customized the text and used it as a widget on my home screen. Then I set my iPhone to dark mode, with large icons set to clear, and a black background. This is just an experiment, so I did this as a focus mode, which gives me the ability to go back and forth between my Light Phone aesthetic and normal iPhone effortlessly. In the short time I have run this experiment, I have found that I want this Light Phone focus to be the default.
Is this "The Thing Before Preppy"? Is this "Salt Water New England-y"? I will leave that to others to mull. But it is part of a welcome trend to balance the conveniences and necessities of technology (such as, for me, this blog) with the realization of not letting it go to far.
I use a smartphone as seldom as possible. Unfortunately it apparently is no longer possible to get a truly workable small phone like the first couple I had, both by Nokia. They were about 3.5 inches long, an inch and a half wide, and less than an inch thick.
ReplyDeleteI.did a similar thing wirh my Samsung phone some time ago
ReplyDeleteI leave my iPhone on the kitchen counter most of the time, often long enough to lose its charge completely. All of my away messages, including VM, say this phone is not monitored, and if you really need to reach me, call my landline. If I don't answer, leave a message. My poor iPad gets used for things like this, a couple of daily NYT games, and reading texts and emails. Even with my limited use of these devices, I feel I could let them go. A phone, books, music, cooking, friends, gardening...life is full enough without connectivity devices.
ReplyDeleteHeh ... I use a Flippy. Problem solved ... collars up !!!
ReplyDeleteNice...but for those of us still in the working world not necessarily feasible. Life has become multifactor authentication and 1x codes all day long...
ReplyDeleteMy willingness to ignore my phone is clearly a reaction to my time working in government, having to be accessible 24/7. I even remember being tracked down late in the day on Christmas eve by a state senator flexing her muscles. Then she had the temerity to end the call with her standard "have a blessed day." Just yikes.
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ReplyDeleteMuffy is right in simplifying her phone - as Einstein once said things should be made as simple as possible, but not too simple.
ReplyDeleteAnd let’s face it, phones have gotten completely out of hand. Thirty years ago, if you had told someone you were going to watch a movie on your telephone, check the sport’s scores, and then afterwards go out and take a few photographs with it, they would have had you committed to the nearest asylum. And if you had shown up with your iPhone in Europe during the Middle Ages (Circa 1300 AD), the superstitious populous would have burned you at the stake as a demonic witch wielding black magic.
Progress? Remember Gordon Gecko strolling along the evening beach with a huge portable phone that looked like a World War II Walkie-Talkie? Not really that long ago. Anyway, at least it qualified as a telephone.
Want to simplify? Minimalism reaches its’ apotheosis with the Jitterbug flip2. It’s just a telephone. That’s it. Made to send calls out and take them in. And cheap too. Here it is:
https://www.lively.com/phones/?srsltid=AfmBOorqkEJmH-GTuFVKrD60cuJoPnbToVoqxTYC-H6dMbdXD6MgTTcw
I am not blindly a fan of technology. There’s no way to avoid it eventually. It won’t be long before in order to communicate we have to keep up. It’s a frightening thought for some of us. But it’s a fact.
ReplyDeleteWe are slaves to machines.
ReplyDeleteHaven’t changed the look of my IPhone but use it only for, in descending order of frequency: walking timer/number of steps-daily, phone calls, maps for driving texts-seldom.
ReplyDeleteNot quite iPhone related, but in the ballpark. I sign off from checking/responding to university email about 2pm Friday and do not log in again until 8am the following Monday. That extends in either direction when there is a break of some kind during the fall and spring semesters. A holdover from the pandemic-era that I have kept up. Boundaries are vital in the digital age.
ReplyDeleteKind Regards,
Heinz-Ulrich
Simple works, and works well!
ReplyDeleteI find just the opposite to be true for me.
ReplyDeleteHaving my tiny pocket computer frees me from being tied to a desk/phone/paper maps/steps tracker, etc. etc. I can start my car from the train on freezing cold days, answer emails (or not) from the ski lift, text with my family from the middle of bay. I can see traffic in real time, check if my prescriptions are ready, buy movie tickets.
It has a off button, so if it becomes intrusive, it gets turned off.
Agreed @Patsy. Be a master of the phone, not a slave to it.
DeleteI spend most of my time on my iPhone deleting junk I don't want, but because I am still connected to friends and the University of Pennsylvania, I need to get some of the notices and updates.
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas Muffy. I abhor surveillance capitalism and have blocked the camera, microphone, location and other tracking an my phone and laptoo computer. I also use a browser that doesn't track or sell my browsing history. I limit who can access my information and who can contact me personally. I turn off unwanted texts, reject and report spam etc. It makes life easier and better. Jane Austen called this "drawing back."
ReplyDeleteI LOVE it.
ReplyDeleteVery thought provoking post, as usual, Muffy! I've been thinking more and more lately about ending some of my embrace of technology. I'm old enough to have lived and begun my working life well before the rise of the Internet and cell phones. Were our lives poorer back then? Richer, I think - at least in all the ways that really matter. I spend a good deal of my time on the Internet and a lot of that is frankly just a waste of time. Some of it isn't, though (financial stuff) and every time I think about pulling the plug completely and just turning over the management of my financial life to a hired professional, two words jump into my mind: Bernie Madoff.
ReplyDeleteWe all know technology is neutral. It’s ramifications depend on how it is used. I keep in touch with reality in retirement by substitute teaching in grammar school on and off a day or two a week.(It can be quite entertaining). At that level, at least where I “sub” in the northwest corner, social media has yet to initiate the damage it does to teenagers, especially girls. Thé damage is well documented. I do find that curious students, as young as 2nd or 3rd grade, through the internet can expand their knowledge extensively. One 2nd grader recently walked into the classroom and asked me, “do you know what a zodiac galaxy is?” I didn’t. He did. 2nd grade.
ReplyDeleteI never wear black before 6 p.m., so I would need a daytime mode in pink, green, and blue. With that said, I share the impulse. I keep things minimal. I have the WSJ and NYT apps on my phone along with weather, podcasts, and audio books. I also have apps for airlines, Uber, DoorDash, and a few other things that are not functional on a laptop or desktop. But that's about it. I don't keep email or social media on my phone. In any case, I adore my iPhone's camera and GPS, so I can't imagine going back to a flip phone or no phone. But taking email and social media off my phone was one of the best things I ever did. I got the idea from Cal Newport's terrific book, "Digital Minimalism."
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