Regressing Forward
The dumbphone boom
When I was a little kid, my world was four places. The house, the backyard, the front yard, and the bottom of the driveway.
A few years later, it included the bus and school. Soon after that, the most interesting place to be was sitting staring at the magic glass.
I got a car. But the magic glass was still superior. Now my world consists of, well, hell, I don’t even know. Modernity has removed every wall. Perhaps if there were walls, I’d instinctually I’d punch through them.
I have a theory that smartphones can hinder development, keeping its users in a phone frequency, hour after hour, day after day. A narcotic magnet to psycho mediocrity and parasocial relationships.
I think scrolling, notifications and nonstop disconnectedness is a significant invention. A shift in civilization. A removal of walls, an outsourcing of in-person to the parasocial, and self-regulation and contemplation to apps.
A chronic comparison machine. The proliferator of porn. It feels amazing in the moment, but indeed it is too good to be true.
All the world’s information and entertainment is at my fingertips. By the time I see or hear one thing, I’m clicking on the next thing. Succumbing to temptation. Trading thoughts and feelings for new tabs and notifications.
Juggling 10-20 tabs. Firehosing novelty. Gorging on pseudo connection and hazy holy grails.
It’s like the car. In many ways. The promise of connection, to many places and people. Incredible power. Amazing convenience and benefits. Now you can move anywhere - live anywhere. Drive there in 5 minutes instead of walk there in 20. No need for sidewalks or shops distributed throughout neighborhoods. We can put all the markets in one place and people can drive there in their personal bubbles.
100 years ago, it was a big deal in my family if someone moved out of the family neighborhood. Now every person in my family lives in a different state. Now I have a sort of quasi-family of friends and internet friends. And I’m grateful for that - love you guys.
When my car was in the shop for a week, I enjoyed biking around the city, without hesitation, getting where I needed to go, combining my daily exercise with my commute.
Inconvenience is perception. What once was convenient is now considered inconvenient.
What would I do differently if I didn’t have a smartphone? Would I read more books, write more, and deeper? Would I feel more keen on sitting around with friends? Would I reflect on some of the 10,000 videos I’ve watched?
America is built for cars. It’s expected you have one and once you do it’s hard to go back. It’s hard to be the only person on the hot and dirty side of the road with a parade of vehicles blasting by.
I’m coming up on my ten year anniversary of having an iphone and a car. I am grateful for what these tools allow me to do, learn and create. I’m grateful for the immense optionality. Google Maps makes life into a videogame.
What if I actually got rid of these things. Started mailing letters, calling people from a phone corded to a wall, filled a bike basket with groceries. It would be a big deal to go to a different state, to get a letter from my family.
I’d feel like a retard.
But no more low back pain from long drives.
No more carpel tunnel and back spasms from late nights of scrolling and texting.
No more music of every flavor and country.
No more images of sexy women two clicks away.
No more 308 videos on my Watch Later list.
No more Amazon to buy and return cheap things.
All of a sudden my local community matters a hell of a lot more. All of a sudden I’m calm again, focusing on my body, thinking about my environment and feeling my breath.
Thrills are replaced by mundane subtle pleasures.
Another human is worth their weight in gold for the knowledge they hold.
Is all of Instagram worth one human life?
Is substack worth a family of four?
Is an unbridled iPhone worth an anxiety disorder?
I need time to process and absorb base reality. Walking is the OG scrolling the feed. Biking is the TikTok of walking.
Do what deepens your breath. Trade thoughts for humming and breathing. Relax into the moment and enjoy the ride.
***
I stayed on my phone deep into the night, holding it in front of my face, reading and scrolling. I awoke in the morning with an upper back spasm, causing severe pain when I try to lift or turn my head.
I go to see Krystal, my massage therapist.
She works on the area. I let out a scream.
“I know, I know,” she says
“I’m getting a flip home.”
She laughs.
“Just be mindful of your usage. Your body talks to you.”
“I know. It’s talking right now. It’s yelling get a flip phone.”
The massage ends and we chat as I put my shoes on and she flips the blankets.
“My attachment to my phone is work related,” she says. “If I’m on it, I’m aware of it. If I'm scrolling aimlessly, it’s gotta go. I can’t even look at it for long, my eyes tweak out.
Over the years, I’ve seen everyone’s bodies becoming hunched, and people’s hands are mangled now.”
“Wow.”
“Are you going to Venmo?”
“Can I just give you my phone?”
I Venmo and walk out of Krystal’s office to the riverfront park. Everyone has a vice in their hands. I don’t know any of these people. I don’t know what they’re doing, what they’re thinking, how they’re feeling.
Is it a vice in their hands or their minds in a vice.
Perhaps it would be a great service to my generation for me to figure out how to live without one. Maybe that means me carrying a journal, a recording gadget, and a camera. Perhaps a fanny pack is in my future.
Pretty soon I’ll be dead. And I’ll ask myself, did I try to contribute? Did I try, or did I roll over with the herd and die.
No phone
No car
Those are the terms
I stand up from the bench, walk to the river, and throw my phone in.
It was an iPhone 14.
lol
I’m typing my visions into my notes. I’ll auction off this vice to its next victim.
I can whisper my thoughts and I’ll remember them, at least the ones worth sharing. If I hand-write, I remember everything.
We all have a decision to make. Live based in base reality or unlive clutching the black box. We must choose our information environment. Goggles on, or goggles off.
I lived for a million years without a single app.
I want to throw my phone in but I don’t. Instead, I watch the ducks. There are three of them riding the current. They speak to me.
“Stop putting your crap in the river.”
I realize the problem. If you have three vices, and you delete one, you still have two.
If you delete them all, it’s going to suck.
Go all the way or don’t even try. You have to be committed to re wiring. Re orienting. Reviving.
Not less
Zero
Not for a week
Years
Not turn them off
Get rid of them
I won’t know how to do this is until after I do it.
What is inconvenient?
I’ll tell you:
Back spasms
Chronic pain
Phone brain
Psychiatric disorders
Is walking to the store inconvenient? Is hand-writing inconvenient?
We didn’t evolve for cars and vices. We evolved for walking and talking.
I’m going to find the middle ground between Amish and neck spasm.
calls. He’s a Seattle based writer and father of six. I forgot we scheduled a time to chat. Naturally, I brought up this topic which affects everyone, barring the Old Order Amish.Michael said,
For me, it’s my desktop. My phone just has apps I need for work.
The only place I can access the internet is in my office on the other side of the house from where I sleep.
What I find is that I’m writing, then I check out Twitter.
I don’t think of myself as compulsive. But these things are designed for that. I need to use the [software] tools to prevent distraction. Our brains aren’t designed to combat it on our own.
It’s like a radioactive environment. You need to use a suit all the time or you die.
The people with only social media friends are screwed.
The reviews are terrible. Exactly what I’m looking for.
It’s trending to rage against the addiction machine. Fellow writer and pathless pather wrote
about his first few flip phone weeks and inspired me to regress forward.
Take the good without the bad. The safety, connection and convenience, without the addiction, confusion, back spasm, anxiety and depression.
If you don’t go full flip phone, I suggest deleting life sucking apps and disabling random vibrations and frivolous notifications. Others are doing no vicephone on weekends, after 9pm, or on vacation.
I’m hosting a vice-free nature retreat in September with seven people. I’ll have my flip phone in my backpack in case of emergency.
Krystal will be there giving massages.
The culture is slowly adjusting to our historically novel technonarcotic environment, rebuilding the walls, and our sanity.
Thank you
and for feedback on this essay.Update on the Nokia 2780 Flip. Since my iPhone 14 does not have a physical SIM card, just eSIM, I can’t pop it into the 2780 Flip. The Flip connects to the internet but does not run WhatsApp. I suggest getting a flipper that can run WhatsApp for a smooth transition to dumbphone living. In the meantime, I went into Screen Time on iPhone and set a 10 minute limit for every app, and went into Accessibility, Display & Text, and turned the colors to grayscale and activated Reduce White Point, in an attempt to make the product worse, and my life better.
I’m wrapping up my V1 of Elon Musk book this week, then moving to Boston. Part 2 of Solving the Dating Problem will be released in early September.
Watching and Listening
Offerings
Join CrowdHealth, peer-to-peer healthcare funding facilitated by a third party. I’ve been a member for two years.
My Book, All Outcomes Are Acceptable, is on Amazon. It’s about AI drones, Amish people, health, and getting rich. Readers are loving it.
Retreat weekend. Digital Detox New Hampshire is a four-day gathering of creators and entrepreneurs in the White Mountains.
Thanks for reading, and have a great rest of your day.
Have you watched White Lotus? Most memorable thing for me - other than reinforcing Mike White isa genius - was the teenager son losing his phone/tablet and after a few grumpy days becoming the only happy person on the show.
Just finishing the book, "The Anxious Generation." Highly recommend it.