Onio wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2026 11:53 am It's been a week! We need an update on what it's like to be using a dumb phone! I'm guessing it's been boring in a good way?

This Friday will be 2 weeks with a dumb phone and honestly its just.... normal. I thought it was gonna be a difficult everyday battle like quitting nicotine or something but its really not. Someone will ask me to look something up or something and I'll just laugh and explain my situation. Some people are almost bothered by the idea and some are jealous. I might have converted a couple strangers already haha!

Really once I didn't have a smartphone around I mostly stopped needing it. It isn't something I have been super inconvenienced by. I need a computer for banking which is annoying, but that's pretty much the only thing. I just got back from a road trip and was surprised by how much I missed (including the onio chat shutdown). When the internet is a place you can visit instead of somewhere serving you notifications constantly it makes it and the people you see there more human.

One last thing is texts and calls are actually exciting again. When my phone goes off I know there is an actual person trying to get in contact with me either for something important or just to chat and I just really like that.

Pseu wrote: Wed Jul 08, 2026 7:40 pm When the internet is a place you can visit instead of somewhere serving you notifications constantly it makes it and the people you see there more human.

One last thing is texts and calls are actually exciting again. When my phone goes off I know there is an actual person trying to get in contact with me either for something important or just to chat and I just really like that.

That's beautiful :,) Sounds like a major win to me. The part about it not being a thing we need is so true, I don't think I got a smartphone until I was maybe 20, and even at the time, the model I got was slow (and had a physical keyboard). Never needed a cell phone growing up and part of me is kind of pining for those times again.