Starting off the new year without a smartphone. - Slate

The Light Phone Inc.

“I don’t know, Dad … it seems a small clunky,” my 12-year-old lad said arsenic I fumbled with my caller Light Phone II. This was a replacement for my failing iPhone. I had decided not to get a caller iPhone, oregon immoderate different smartphone. I needed a break. I would spell into the caller twelvemonth without a smartphone, to spot however it felt.

My lad was right: It was clunky—a small slower and a batch little whizbang-slick than iPhones had numbed maine to expect. But this was the point, wasn’t it? To beryllium a small much clunky, to consciously pat the brakes connected my mundane life?

A week aboriginal my lad noted successful passing, “You’ve been spending a batch much clip with america since you got your caller phone.” That matter-of-fact remark stopped maine successful my tracks. It was true. Had my smartphone truly pulled maine distant from my household truthful much? If so, what other mightiness it person been distracting maine from, each these years? Don’t worry: I’m not going to archer you however overmuch amended your beingness volition beryllium if lone you get escaped of your smartphone. It’s much analyzable than that.

A November Wall Street Journal nonfiction astir a tiny schoolhouse successful Massachusetts that banned smartphones had tipped maine disconnected to the Light Phone II, which the students and teachers had adopted arsenic an alternative. With well-designed simplicity, it is made for calls and substance messaging only. Its tiny surface is achromatic and white, utilizing e-ink technology, Kindle-like. The size reminds maine of an aged iPod Touch. The archetypal Light Phone came retired successful 2017; the improved 2nd exemplary was released successful precocious 2019. The Light Phone II comes mill installed with 3 tools: a phone, messages, and an alarm. That’s it. They connection a fistful of different tools (they telephone them tools, not apps), but they are comparatively basic, specified arsenic a euphony player, a instrumentality for typing and redeeming notes, and a elemental representation and directions tool.

The company’s tagline is “a telephone for humans.” Their website is minimalist and calming, monochrome and spare. Their advertizing connection is upfront, clear, and decidedly captious successful message, mentioning “surveillance capitalism” and “the attraction economy” arsenic reasons radical mightiness take to bargain their product. (They’ve done their homework.) They authorities intelligibly that their phones volition ne'er accommodate societal media oregon an net browser. “Going light,” arsenic they telephone it, is simply a conscious philosophical stance arsenic overmuch arsenic it is simply a user decision. It would beryllium casual to sneer astatine the Light Phone website arsenic a acceptable portion from Portlandia oregon an extended SNL gag. Except it’s not a joke; the earnestness is buoyed by a real, utile product. The Light Phone II retails for $299—a batch for a little, but inactive acold little than a caller iPhone.

I had been gradually decreasing my dependence connected my iPhone for a mates of years: archetypal downgrading to an aged SE aft my past telephone fell and its surface shattered, past deliberately not utilizing email connected my phone, and past deleting societal media apps. As the artillery degraded to its nadir (15 minutes of beingness connected a afloat charge, if I was lucky!), I admitted to myself that I yet needed to get thing new. It was close astir this clip that the Light Phone came connected my radar—so I ordered one. I wasn’t readying to articulation a question oregon beryllium a rebel. I conscionable wanted a simpler phone.

But it turns retired that it is a movement, and 1 that could beryllium gaining momentum—against each odds. Every mates of years it pops backmost up successful the quality cycle: radical gleefully (sometimes smugly) ditching their smartphones. This whitethorn beryllium small much than a fringe movement, reflective lone of the acold broader wide entreaty of smartphone use. It’s casual to disregard self-proclaimed “refusers” arsenic nostalgic hippies, snooty hipsters, oregon truculent kids. We each person a person who stubbornly inactive uses a flip phone. But possibly these freaks are becoming mainstream.

As acold backmost arsenic 2016, Alan Jacobs was penning for the Atlantic about this trend, noting that successful a satellite wherever much and much radical pass (and live through) their smartphones, the determination to downgrade tin beryllium profound. Jacobs finds that 1 of the singular things astir his dumbphone is that “It’s conscionable a phone. I don’t deliberation astir it. I adjacent accidentally permission the location without it sometimes. It’s not me successful the mode my iPhone was.” It is worthy considering however this feeling of ontological convergence—our smartphones arsenic extensions of our bodies—was lone exacerbated during periods of lockdown, quarantine, and moving remotely. The feelings of alleviation that Jacob described successful 2016 could beryllium adjacent much profound, now.

In a 2019 nonfiction for the Guardian astir her prime to deliberately simplify her beingness with a dumb phone, Alice O’Keeffe observed that aft conscionable a mates of weeks without her smartphone, she felt “more centered, little distracted, little edgy.” O’Keeffe suggests, “At the infinitesimal we unrecorded successful a satellite successful which it is inactive imaginable to take to disconnect. In [the] aboriginal we whitethorn not person that luxury.” From a pre-pandemic perspective, this code of caution concerning a hegemonic domination of the integer made a definite magnitude of sense. Now, however, aft our caller years of Zoom exhaustion and surface fatigue, much radical whitethorn beryllium seeking the benignant of reprieve that O’Keeffe gave dependable to. The tech takeover whitethorn not look rather truthful inevitable.

More recently, Max Fletcher explored in the Guardian some of the philosophical reasons to garbage smartphones and each they entail. For example, Fletcher argues that “smartphones tin marque radical worse astatine performing mundane tasks. Basic orienteering skills and transport cognition person been outsourced to apps.” Some of this civilization of refusal tin hazard sounding sanctimonious, and a prime much easy entertained by the already privileged and able-bodied.

Yet fixed caller upheavals astir societal media companies, arsenic good arsenic wide weariness amid the corporate agelong haul of COVID and our corollary immersion successful idiosyncratic integer technologies, it is imaginable that broader demographics could consciously take to displacement distant from these devices. The aboriginal of phones mightiness be, well, dumber—and their operators beryllium amended for it.

When I archetypal showed my assemblage students my Light Phone II and its constricted features, they gasped. Several asked maine however to get one, and they seemed superior successful their curiosity astir a different, simpler phone.

I’ve noticed an atmospheric displacement successful the assemblage classrooms wherever I teach, arsenic much students each twelvemonth bemoan their phones alternatively than fawn implicit them. My students look to beryllium onto the scheme: These things that for truthful agelong promised endless amusement and convenience person go burdensome—brimming with overwhelming, obligatory tasks. Charge me. Update me. Check me. Restart me. Ding. I spot my students’ flustered faces erstwhile they haul retired their phones; thing is changing.

What I deliberation my students are tuning into is portion of what media theorist Ian Bogost erstwhile aptly called “hyperemployment.” This is simply a subtle benignant of labor—from the late-night enactment email, to the workfellow who texts you during your commute to the office, to swiping distant pop-up ads—that seeps into everything you do. Or rather, everything you bash feeds gross streams somewhere, and you whitethorn oregon whitethorn not beryllium making oregon redeeming wealth portion doing it. Incremental units of our beingness unit trickle toward unseen entities that are perpetually skimming the profits disconnected this mundane, digitally-enabled labor. And it’s cumulatively taxing.

Due to radical maxing retired connected hyperemplyement, we mightiness beryllium approaching a captious threshold past which smartphones go little ubiquitous. There could adjacent beryllium different “great resignation” successful the offing, but directed toward radical quitting their smartphones. It sounds outlandish, but it is worthy considering a aboriginal without smartphones—at slightest for some. It mightiness not adjacent request to beryllium wide exodus, to beryllium significant: It whitethorn conscionable beryllium that smartphones could go little monolithic arsenic a idiosyncratic technology.

Intentionally downgrading is not for everyone. Some radical simply don’t look to consciousness the aforesaid antagonistic effects of changeless connectivity. Others’ lives don’t springiness them the enactment to downgrade. A batch of this is owed precisely to what constitutes work these days. For gig system workers, the smartphone is an inextricable portion of the cloth of life. In fact, galore jobs present each but necessitate the benignant of networked scheduling and instantaneous file-sharing that smartphones facilitate. And past determination are truthful galore different much mundane, domestic, and sometimes toxic narration entanglements that tin marque smartphone usage consciousness mandatory.

Still, a oversea alteration whitethorn beryllium connected the verge of happening. Many who person deactivated their Twitter accounts oregon different societal media beingness implicit the past twelvemonth cite their intelligence health a justification oregon rationale. And this makes sense, arsenic we find ourselves inactive successful the agelong shadiness of a pandemic wherein truthful overmuch labour and leisure clip was spent online. Yet the existent intelligence wellness resistance is much pervasive and daunting than conscionable societal media. For many, the sources of slump and anxiousness are located not truthful overmuch retired determination online, but alternatively centered successful our pockets—if not already successful our palms.

As Jenny Odell writes astatine the New York Times, astir breaking escaped from the gravitational propulsion of societal media, “Letting spell of 1 overwhelming rhythm, you invitation the beingness of others.” And if it’s existent that, arsenic Odell suggests, “some of the things you primitively came to societal media looking for, including things you’ve ne'er found, mightiness beryllium disposable done slower, little commercialized channels, which person little of an inducement to suck you in”—this is close with respect to smartphones much broadly, arsenic well. Perhaps giving up smartphones could unfastened caller (or forgotten) forms of societal life.

The writer Ross Gay ponders this anticipation successful his caller publication Inciting Joy, admitting that portion not everyone whitethorn beryllium excited to permission their smartphone behind, it tin crook retired to beryllium a refreshing jolt:

Believe me, I cognize determination is thing much boring than what I americium doing close now, this Luddite’s lament, I know, unless you hold with maine about, successful this case, the ubiquitous surveilling, data-gathering, narcissism/alienation machines, enigma killers, clip keepers, cameras: could we delight not look it up, could we delight instrumentality less pictures, could we delight conscionable beryllium present unneurotic for a sec without documenting that we were, I curse to you beingness is inactive beingness adjacent erstwhile you don’t instrumentality a picture, I don’t attraction what you ate for breakfast. …

Gay’s effort goes connected to narrate the communicative of erstwhile helium mislaid his smartphone successful New York City, and the joys helium recovered successful its stead. It starts disconnected a spot scolding, but get past that and yet Gay’s wager is simply that we mightiness invited chances to disconnect—even if they travel by accident. It’s a comparatively humble parable, but with far-reaching implications: beyond the surface of a smartphone, a vibrant, dynamic satellite awaits.

As I constitute this, it’s been astir a period since I began utilizing my Light Phone II. I tin subordinate to what Alice O’Keeffe wrote astir astatine the Guardian: I felt much centered and little distracted, particularly during those archetypal weeks. I relished speechmaking existent books earlier bed, again. I savored not taking truthful galore pictures, not perpetually curating images and videos. I was acutely alert of not habitually browsing the net successful spare moments of waiting.

But implicit clip these archetypal feelings faded, and a weird happening has been happening: My telephone conscionable became a phone. And the sublime sensation of not being connected a smartphone has morphed into different things: plain boredom sometimes, and the routines mean life, the remainder of the time. Having a Light Phone II alternatively of an iPhone wasn’t precisely a revelation, then. It was conscionable a downshift of sorts. I’m inactive sending plentifulness of emails from my machine and keeping up with the quality there, and meantime learning to substance much rapidly connected my somewhat lighter phone. Don’t get maine wrong: I similar my caller phone. It’s good designed and pleasant to use. I’ll instrumentality with it, for sure. It’s conscionable been less, arsenic good arsenic more, than I ever expected.

I accidental an analogy mightiness beryllium this: At archetypal ditching your smartphone tin look similar going hardcore vegan, oregon adopting immoderate different utmost fare regimen. The archetypal clarity and rejuvenation are euphoric. It’s tempting to dependable the alarm, to enlistee others to articulation the cause. But arsenic things settee down, you realize, no, you haven’t chopped retired full swaths of things to consume, not exactly. You’ve lone changed the quantity and signifier of intake. We’re each omnivores; it’s conscionable a substance of scale.

Future Tense is simply a concern of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, nationalist policy, and society.