Posted by articsputnik 10/13/2025
- having a "phone box", the small uncomfortable shoe bench now has a shelf above it for phones, phones shall only be used on that bench
- only my partner knows the "screen time" password on iOS
- putting away my laptop and using a desktop computer instead
My current problem is listening to podcasts, I don't have a convenient way to listen to them without my phone.
The big issue is that I'm not very good at moderating my intake. I'm a crack addict for information and one small dose will turn into a bender.
I've got a somewhat weekly 6 hour round-trip commute where it get a lot of use.
For those looking to drop a(ny) habit: this seems to be the key
It's not perfect, as I still spend a lot of time on Reddit and HN on the tiny screen while commuting, but it's moved the needle for me.
1. it's gotta be bad for the eyes on a screen that small 2. the Pixel camera!
I guess these phones are rebadged?
I removed every 'fun' app except for a few exceptions:
- ChatGPT, but mostly in voice mode, and with other people - as a party trick.
- Whisper Memos (https://whispermemos.com/), I record voice memos and they end up in my email, so I can continue with that idea when I'm on a computer (whether that is a prompt for AI, or a todo.)
- Bevel (https://www.bevel.health/), to track sleep factors, such as whether I wore a nasal strip
- Overcast (https://overcast.fm/), for playing podcasts.
- Liftosaur (http://liftosaur.com/), for tracking gym
- Basics like Banking, EV charging, Maps, Parking, Messages, Weather, Authenticator, Reminders, etc.
I removed App Store as well as Safari, so these apps is all I can do on my iPhone.
In the beginning, I set up a Screen Time code so I wouldn't be able to cheat. But in a few weeks I got used to it. So App Store and Safari are enabled again, but I never use them. (Maybe Safari is disabled. I have no idea to be honest.)
The biggest downside is I never know where my phone is. However, I'll gladly accept this downside.
For computer I'm almost 100% on there all the time whether at work or at home, I can't handle silence. The present thing is funny, when the internet goes out I'm in the present like oh man what do I do.
I think going out and being in nature is good for being present. Watching the ocean/large body of water, huge field, being in a forest, etc...
It is funny how your mind operates where you're always in some state, it's 9 AM I gotta be at work, it's this time I have to do this next... that's what I aim for is not huge wealth (although that'd be nice stealth anyway) but freedom with my own time. Right now from dumb choices I'm burdened with debt so my main reason to continue living is just working to pay bills. Not saying that in a bad way I just realized that, trying to get passion back in something. And my cat gotta care for him.
It's amazing to me how many people can't seem to walk down the street these days without staring at their phones the entire time.
I think they're addictive, bad for your mental health and acuity, and bad for society. And it's amazing how much time I'll spend even just checking the two small hobby discords I'm in just cause I've been so tuned towards picking up the phone when bored.
Leaving it in the other room on a speaker is nice cause it at least forces me to get up, and since I keep it on the speaker I don't often sit with it anymore. Which means I do other stuff like read, and clean, and work on things, or just sit and stare at the wall and let my brain breathe.
I still use maps (without location though), check out which helicopters and ships I'm looking at, weather, email, search, and Spanish flashcards through Anki. Which I think are nice activities.
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1631165043 - This is 5000 common Spanish words. Be warned, the pictures appear to have been pulled by some sort of automated process and some are risque. That being said, I learn words and then see or hear them fairly quickly while watching baseball en español, o leyendo las noticias o los librose.
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/638411848 - Spanish conjugation. Super hard at first, especially since it starts with the most unique verbs. But patterns emerge, and incredibly useful.
Those two are the only... "formal" work if you can call it that that I'm doing. The rest is writing to friends and notes at work, watching baseball and tv (and with subtitles and audio where possible), reading the news sometimes (still difficult, but has added benefit that I read less news), setting interfaces to Spanish.
My Spanish is really coming along at this point, and it's very cool. Wishing you good luck in your endeavor!! The most important thing is to just stick with it.
On my work computer only. There's a fair amount of professional relevance. I don't think I've clicked the "next page" button in a decade though.
So that sits firmly in the "healthy" category for me.
If "necessity" means work-related: On my work-issued iPhone, I call and (briefly) text with people, triage some e-mail, have a look at calendars, take some in-situ photo/video, refer to a few notes, and so on. I don't have the screen time feature turned on but I guess I'm also below 30 minutes on that phone on most days. The exception being traditional voice calls which occasionally can go on for (much) longer than those 30 minutes, depending on what's happening. However, most of my more regular, scheduled conversations happen in real-life or in Zoom, Webex or other such platforms and not on a mobile phone.
The only work-related thing that I can think of OTOH which really required me to use a mobile device is hardware that requires an app to work (which is fortunately still rare).
And don't get me started on all the custom apps cluttering my phone that these schools and sports leagues get sold on for sharing flyers and other info (Parent Square, Peach Jar, Playmetrics, Mojo, etc.) I guess it's a feature that most of those apps are not well designed and they don't suck you into addictive engagement loops like the big social media platforms.
Maybe something like that could work. If you find there are notifications that are disturbing you, but they really could have waited until the evening, toss 'em in the batch bucket. Eventually you'll tune out all the low-importance stuff and get your life back. Or find some other cadence that works for you. It takes some effort to tune these systems, but I think it's worth it.
Now the browser doesn't work and I can't install new apps. I also turn on "Do Not Disturb" almost all the time, which allows through notifications from exactly 3 people.
I stood up and heckled my clown state representatives, for almost an hour, providing audience-appreciated commentary to what I perceive as our failed political system (US bipartisan).
To their toothless grocery sales tax reduction legislation (which'll never pass), I suggested my fellow constituents just shop across the state line, in one of the many nearby grocery stores — just STOP giving our state this money, then maybe they'll consider legislative changes.
Perhaps this fell upon deaf ears, but I wasn't the only audience member frustrated with our legislators' back-patting/inaction. I will vote/shop with my money, elsewhere. I wrote my state officials a letter afterwards, offering common-sense suggestions — hoping this geriatric remembers my participation (he turns 80 soon... just retire already, Congressman!).
Come on, raise your kids right.
This did not seem to work for me. I would forget about it and after a while just left it on color.
Now I use a shortcut on the action button. By default my iPhone is black and white, pressing the action button gives me color for two minutes.
The crucial step is that after this time it is automatically switching back to black and white. Even when the phone is locked.
This now seems to actually help. And as a side effect I also enjoy looking at a few things in black and white. A new experience.
All these great ideas for how to prevent you from doing something, they all need to allow me to bypass it when I want to, but they also need to automatically switch back to the “locked” mode.
This needs to be seamless so that the “yes I am sure I want to read this” bypass does not become a new, meaningless habit.
What is also interesting is that apparently, for me, a hard lock-out, a hard disable, is not good enough. Instead, reducing the joy (black & white filter) seems to work much better and does not motivate me to work around the restriction.
I doubt I would be happy with a dumb phone either. So this is a good middle ground.
One other thing I’ve always hoped to see is a kind of scheduled check in with me, where I am asked / reminded to get out of my Netflix / Reddit / YouTube tunnel vision.
Hardware and software to do that is tricky. iOS locked down too much.
But there are today quite capable and cheap Esp32 based smart watches (~$25) and I am trying to figure out how to integrate one of these into my life purely for tunnelvision-interrupting “are you really sure you want to do this right now?” notifications.
I feel privileged to have had a childhood before smartphones. At least I can remember how we used to be.
All of these measures are not because of how it is today but because I am afraid of where we will be a few years from now. Endlessly engaging generated AI content.
Better try to build some boundaries while I still can.