this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
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You. don't. need. a. dumb. phone. to fix your social media addiction
Basically every modern smartphone has features that allow you to restrict your usage of distracting apps/websites. You can recreate a minimalistic dumb phone on your smartphone using free & open source software or your operating system's built-in tools/features. There are a few good videos about this:
You don’t need to cut up your credit cards, never go to a bar or never visit a casino to curb your spending, drinking or gambling addictions either.
But is it hard to understand why people choose to? Not really. This is the same thing.
I understand why, but dumbphones aren't good solutions for most people's problems. They have many disadvantages, for example they don't offer secure (encrypted) communications (except for the Punkt MP02 which has Signal support, but it also has other issues), you don't get a proper keyboard, no touchscreen, and you often can't even look something up on Wikipedia. You can't listen to music/podcasts, use the phone for navigation or take notes. Most people just end up getting frustrated by a dumb phone, and switch back to a smartphone and continue wasting their time on social media. A decluttered smart phone with restrictions for social media usage is much more effective. The videos I linked in my original comment explain this pretty well.