I am not a luddite

reflections on a year and a half of using a flip phone

Last year, I wrote an essay called "Unliberated from Boredom" where I talked about my decision to start using a flip phone and my general philosophy of digital minimalism which I have begun to adopt. It was pretty boldly worded, after all one has to sort of hype themselves up to make a decision like this—I guess my form of doing that is writing an essay.

But's been just about a year and a half since I made that decision. When I pull out my flip phone, many people are still surprised by it, and even some friends and family have forgotten I have it, and ask me how long I'm going to keep this act up—whether it's been genuinely helpful, whether it’s doable for them, or whether the whole thing is just plain unsustainable. Well, considering it's been long enough to let this experiment play out a bit, I figured it was time to provide some reflection on all these steps I have done to make my life more digitally minimal. Minimally digital? Digitally minimalist? Something like that.

First of all, the things that have been positives. The flip phone I use, the Cat S22, is not a "dumb phone", really. It's a phone of moderate intelligence. It runs Android and therefore I can basically get any app I need. So, yes, there have been plenty of circumstances where I have actually used it as I would a smart phone when I needed to. The most regular need to use the phone this way is Google maps. I'm a zoomer and have quite frankly never used a real map lol. That's maybe something I should fix eventually, but when I need to drive somewhere and need directions quickly, I simply have got to have Google maps. So I use my flip phone the exact same way I'd use my old smart phone in that case. And in case you're wondering, yes, it handles Google maps fine. It's just got a delay when you pull up directions but once you actually start the navigation, it works quite well.

The other habit that has gone pretty much unchanged is the fact that I do use my phone to listen to music and to podcasts. Since writing that first essay, I have gotten off of Spotify. This decision was largely due to how little they pay creators and how they’re handling AI. This is the video that tipped me over the edge:

I now use Tidal. I am satisfied enough with it. I do sometimes miss the large amount of playlists I had on Spotify, but it's also sort of fun to start from scratch again. Plus, I didn't delete my Spotify account so I can always go back and import some of those playlists or find albums who's names I've forgotten, and so on. Plus, one of my favorite bands, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard just pulled all their stuff from Spotify but I can still easily access it on Tidal. So that's nice.

But aside from these areas, using the flip phone has completely changed my approach to phone usage. I was very much into texting, group chats, and even online chat rooms when I had my smart phone, but I had to massively scale back my messaging habit on my flip phone. I stropped using Facebook messenger and then was unable to access it once I deleted all my Meta accounts at the beginning of this year. that eliminates IG as a messaging platform as well. I mainly try to use plain old SMS text messages nowadays, but I also have Telegram and WhatsApp so I can talk to select friends, mainly international ones. I also still have Discord, but it barely runs on the flip phone so I only really access it on my laptop. I honestly miss the frequent use of Discord than I miss most social media, but it is nonetheless a massive time sink, so it has been an additional source of free time.

My habits with texting itself have changed. Because the phone's storage is only so big and leaving conversations lingering in my inbox quickly becomes overwhelming, I've begun actually regularly going through all my texts, closing the loop on any dangling conversations or questions and archiving or deleting the messages afterwards. As part of my digital minimalism, I want to reduce the need to feel like I have to check my email and text all the time. And by maintaining a practice of actually clearing both inboxes, it eliminates the artificial sense of business that these digital technologies can give you. Not to mention the fact that I don't need to worry about the business of social media now.

I actually call people now. Usually one person at least a day. My close family members are frequent recipients of these random calls, but so are many of my friends. While many of my closest friends of course return my calls, it's also been a good excuse to call friends I don't regularly talk to and catch up with them about how their lives are going--and since I don't see their social media updates, we tend to have a lot to talk about! It's given me a way to deepen friendships with some unexpected people, and I think calling people shows them that I really do care to hear how they're doing. (I'm even thinking about making a literal list of people I call regularly and everyday go down this list, calling one person. I would try to call everyone till I finish, then start the list again. It's a good idea, I think, and if you are a friend of mine and want to be added, shoot me a text.)

Of course, my productivity has shot up since making this change in my life. That's not particularly surprising, as I have tons more free time to pursue my interests and hobbies. When I am bored, I can pick up a book to read (I've read 28 this year). And that's been a great way to use my mental energy, as I can find time to engage with all sorts of books I would not have time to read otherwise. I'll always be reading a novel or two, but I made my through "A History of Judaism" which felt like a pretty big accomplishment.

My writing habits have largely improved, one result of this is, of course, this blog. For a while, I had a one-essay-per-week streak going and that was definitely only possible through my digital minimalism. When you eliminate distracting amusements, writing itself becomes a form of entertainment. When I write an essay, I feel like I've cleaned house in my brain. Like I've sorted out my thoughts, got them out of my head. And writing fiction feels almost like a mental game of sorts. I'm still working my way through this novel I am writing (I try to write 1k words per day, 4 days a week), called "A Work of Mad Discord". I am now in the third act and am tying all the plot threads together. I've also had time to restart my Youtube channel where I somewhat regularly make video essays and the like. As proof of my productivity, here are the numbers.

Since getting a flip phone, I have:

- Written and published 61 posts for this blog (including this one)

- Written 296 pages / 99,267 words of my novel

- Written 5 articles for FilmObsessive

- Made 10 YouTube videos

- Completed a 40 min short film, finished editing a 2 hour experimental film, and have begun work on another short

Another area it's helped in terms of productivity is my actual job (I manage a repertory cinema). It's hard enough to focus on work and stay on task when you have a position like mine where you're constantly doing hundreds of little tasks for all sorts of different reasons, I think I'd be a mess at work if I allowed myself to also have a smartphone in the mix. I've been consciously attempting to optimize my work as this is my first time working a full time job for an extended period of time. And it's really paid off. I keep track of all the tasks I have to work through, and I regularly find myself completing the list, rather than procrastinating and letting a backlog grow. That gives me time to explore other facets of my job beyond fulfilling my obligations. By this I mean professional development opportunities, such as curating a film series. In November, we'll be screening a series I curated called "Stop Motion as an Artform".

So it's definitely helped me be more productive--no question about that. And yet, not all the changes have been positive.

remembering things

In *Lost Highway*'s famous opening sequence, a couple discovers they're being spied on. When they have the police around, they ask the protagonist, played by Bill Pullman, if they own any cameras:

I can't help but feel like Bill Pullman in this scene. And not because I hate technology, but because certain types of technology change certain ways of thinking. By not having a smartphone, it means I don't have a high quality camera on me at all times. And that's a massive change for someone who had an iPhone in high school, an iPod in middle school, and even a 3DS before then. This means that much of my life has been visually documented, through photos and videos I have taken all throughout my life.

Not having a smartphone, it feels like the last is a sort of memory hole. When I think back on my memories, I can conjure them as usual, but there are far less ways for me to remind myself of them. I end up "remembering them in my own way". There's something poetic about that, sure, but it also fills me with a sort of dread. It makes me sad to think I could have collected some of those moments I experienced in a more permanent way, if only to revisit them later. It somehow makes everyday life feel a bit less real. Smartphone technology constructs an alternate reality for us, including our sense of self as developed through our memories. Living without this stuff, it feels like I'm depriving myself of a certain sort of reality that so many people share. I've heard about friends getting married, having children, and so on, but I haven't seen their pictures. If I tell someone about a trip I had, it's unlikely I can show them what I saw, because I probably didn't take any pictures. It feels strange. Memories surely used to be a largely oral entity and even experiencing a smidgen of what that used to be like has given me a deep appreciation for photography technology.

A lot of this has to do with what a "normal" life should look like. Normalcy nowadays includes in its definition the self-documentation we do with our phones. And the documenting piece is not the problem, I think. So, if I can recreate that capacity of the smartphone without reverting back, I'd love to.

But, on the other hand, there's something nice about not taking out my phone to try and film everything. Obviously, it's become very socially acceptable to do so, but even among those who use their phones frequently, there seems to be an underlying resentment towards how they can make a genuine moment feel less genuine. I mean, what else should we take from this moment in a Nick Cave concert where he tells a crowd to "put their fucking phones away" and then that same crowd rejoices? It's almost as if people are waiting for the excuse to be liberated from the pressure to constantly document everything.

the question

The big question I've been asked by many friends is: will I switch back to a smartphone?

And to be honest? I'm considering it. Largely due to the fact that I would love to have a portable camera like that again. But there are other options for that. It would be neat to get a camera like the DJI Osmo Pocket. Though I'd have to save up for a while (it’s not cheap), I like the idea of having a device devoted to this specific purpose that I could use for everything from casually filming a bonfire at the beach to shooting a short film with it. But if I did revert back, it would honestly just be for this reason.

Which is surprising. I thought I'd miss social media a whole lot more. I thought I'd really miss the group chats, the memes, the content. And to some extent, I do. But none of those things are nearly as fulfilling for me as getting some writing done, reading a great book then calling a friend to talk about it, or going for a long walk distraction free.

I think it's worth saying, though, that whatever I've gained through this experiment, I will not readily lose. Even if I get a smartphone again, I will be using it in a wholly different way. I will not simply revert back to my old habits, but make use of the new ones I've built through using a flip phone. And maybe that's the way people should be thinking about these smartphone alternatives. It's not necessarily a question of whether or not to "give them up forever", but what tools you can make use of to build better habits. Maybe "training" yourself on a flip phone for a year or so to curb the compulsive behaviors smartphones induce is exactly how one should approach the question of digital minimalism.

So whether you're thinking of getting a flip phone, a dumb phone, one of those overpriced light phones, or if you're just looking to scale back on screen time--heed my advice. Not all functions of the smartphone are equally helpful. The cameras on smartphones really are such a useful tool for self-documentation. But X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and so on... Throw them away. You won't regret it.