I recently discovered an alternative to these minimalist phones. On the iPhone I am able to setup “Focus” modes. You can tune which applications give notifications while in the focus mode. So when I’m in my work focus mode I block out notifications for all apps except Outlook and Teams. Then you can also adjust the focus mode to change your Lock Screen widgets and Home Screen layout. So you can prioritize the items you want to see.
Then additionally I setup screen time limits on social media sites like Instagram. I set a 30 min limit per day. Then if I want to bypass that limit I need to make a decision to do it.
I feel like these tools have let me wrestle back control of my device usage. Now I can’t get sucked into hours long Instagram scrolling sessions.
This is pretty well explained in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OybGwwGc20
This is why I’m looking for a dumb phone. Too much time wasted on doomscrolling.
Just get an android phone without google play services or microG, get a minimalist launcher, then only install the apps you need straight from the web
Just like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrZacTUhH0c
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.
