UKH

Okay - so I’m addicted to my smartphone and hate myself for it. I regularly end up with 5 hours screen time a day, and often find myself scrolling at belays or whilst skinning, which I really hate. 

Recently I’ve been leaving my phone in the car, and often don’t take it if I go round to friends/out for dinner. 
 

However a smartphone is really useful (particularly whatapp) is really handy for my job. I get lots of my work through social media and use WhatsApp constantly to communicate with friends/colleagues and clients. 

I also really like the camera/video on my iPhone, and use fatmap for GPS navigation a lot. 

In the ideal world I’d like a basic Nokia (style) dumb phone that does calls/texts, whatapp and ideally can be set up as a hotspot. Email would be a bonus too. But no camera or social media. 

I’d take the sim out of my iPhone and use it as a camera/gps. At the end of the day I’d tether my phone to my thick phone and do a bit of scrolling/weather forecast checking/whatever. 

Any other suggestions for reducing screen time welcome.

I've found deleting app and screen time apps don’t work for me. 

Tom

Mark my words. ... the tobacco of this era.

You can get a normal android smartphone and uninstall all social media apps and even the internet browser with adb, leaving only what you need/want. Then uninstall google play store to resist the temptation of installing them back on when out and about.

You'll still be able to sideload apps downloading the apk's on a computer and moving them to your phone when wanting to.

Not sure if that's possible on an iphone though.

Having gone through a similar thing, I tried an AGM M6 for quite a while. Rugged, great battery life but still had Bluetooth, WhatsApp and audible. Back on a regular smartphone but with most social media deleted as need more feature for work. 

Will happily sell it if you're interested and want to try it?

I feel your pain. Not really an answer to your question, but I’ve just been looking at timer locked boxes for mine to improve my work productivity. 

Presumably because you're self-imposing the restrictions so it's easy to undo them again? I don't know exactly what they're capable of, because I haven't used them myself, but I gather the iPhone parental controls are reasonably extensive and effective (https://support.apple.com/en-gb/105121). Could you set them up with the restrictions you'd like to have but with somebody else you trust as the 'parent' in control of them so that you can't circumvent the restrictions on a whim in a moment of boredom but would have to wait until you were with that person and ask for the change. But if you did find yourself in a bind with an app you really needed being restricted, you could call them and get them to give you the passcode (could always then get them to change it to something you don't know again later).

If you do find a semi-dumb phone to do the things you need, but it has the capability to hotspot for your iPhone for the evenings, will you find that temptation any easier to resist than undoing the restrictions you've already tried? That's said from a position of sympathy rather than judgement, I struggle with spending too much time on my phone myself. I've found that using the phone settings to restrict time on some apps under my own control just about works for me. But only if I'm careful about how much I lock it down. If I restrict or uninstall every app that's a little bit of a time-waster, I circumvent the restrictions as soon as I get a bit bored. But if I allow some screen time for some of my favourite apps at certain times of day when I can afford the time, and allow some apps all of the time that are good entertainment when I'm bored but don't suck me in for ages, those restrictions are easier to stick to. So I'll fairly heavily restrict apps with an infinite scroll of content (e.g Instagram) that can be a huge time-sink. But I'll allow, say, a few games that give me a few minutes of entertainment when I'm bored but are easy to put down again when I lose. It's not perfect and I still spend more time on my phone than I'd like, but it's working better for me than having no restrictions or really heavy restrictions that I give up on too easily.

It is a major problem, but I’d suggest that a slight change of mindset and some minor changes could do the trick; you need to experiment to find what works for you clearly 

First the mindset thing, which is as important for your contacts as it is for you. Decide what a reasonable response time is for your main messaging needs, and then let the contacts know what to expect, and what to use.

Then have a schedule which allows you to deal with them in an efficient and manageable way. For example, stuff like look at emails twice a day, put busy whatsapp convs on mute, appoint a leader for a customer group who channels questions etc, stuff like that. Get a willing relative or sidekick to help

Good luck!

ff

I looked into this last year, and actually started a thread very similar to this on here.

From what I found, there are quite a few 'dumb' phones that claim to still allow WhatsApp, but when I looked into it they didn't really work in practice, can't remember the exact details now, but I think it was to do with the app not updating. I'd be happy to hear if anyone has more up to date info though.

I bought a book called How to break up with your phone which I found really interesting and quite useful. Particularly for me, I found the more scientific explanations of why it's so addictive, and how negatively smartphones affect multiple aspects of our lives, combined with not having my phone within reach when in the house, helpful to really cut down on my aimless browsing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Break-Up-Your-Phone/dp/1409176266

Good luck!

Bought the Kindle version

One thing I try to do at home is leave my phone on the hall table. It's easily accessible if needed but not instantly to hand and the effort of getting up discourages subconscious use.

When out I keep it on a small drybag (usually turned off) in the pocket of my rucksack, again out of sight out of mind.

Hi Tom, I also struggle with this and Ive found cutting out phone scrolling opens up alot of mental space. Lots of time in the mountains is pretty knackering mentally so i think its easy to lapse into something pretty mindless like social media, but its totally toxic. 

My approach was to change the password to my social media apps to a very complex one which i wrote down in a few places so I couldn't get on during business as usual, but could access it to post updates and check in with others. 

Maybe this will inspire you to crack on regardless

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

I've been using an app called Opal but think I'm going to switch to Jomo. 

Opal is about £8 a  month but i   figure I'm so much more  productive it makes it's money back. 

I only allow myself  on whatsapp for 5 mins an hour as I use it for communicating with friends and family. 

I like this option more than a brick phone as I  listen to a lot of spotify and audible and use a few other apps. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/productivity/comments/11gmpcg/alternatives_to_the_... 

Is the WhatsApp on the M6 a full on, updated version? Asked a similar question to the OP. AGM phones look to fit the bill but first hand recommendations are scarce. 

Thanks. 

I'd also highly recommend Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Minimalism-Living-Better-Technology/dp/024...

https://dumbphones.pory.app/

That site is good for finding phones.  I've been thinking of doing something similar recently, but I think not having my banking app will be too annoying.  Work MFA might be an issue as well.

I'd check that the iPhone will work without a sim in it.  You might find that it uses Assisted GPS, which means that it needs a connection to the cell tower to work.

I don't think this is right. Assisted GPS just uses cell tower data to help the GPS get a speedy fix, it doesn't mean the phone or the GPS would stop working without signal.

That would be no different to being somewhere without any mobile coverage, or operating in airplane mode.  "Assisted GPS" is what it says: it's GPS - which only needs to be able to see the sky - augmented by using a terrestrial data network to download the almanac and ephemera data, which is much quicker than the 50 bit/s download speed from the satellites.

It's true that, in an environment which creates difficulties obtaining a good GPS signal, that download may take a very long time, or simply fail.  But even with challenging conditions like that, not being able to a terrestrial data source should not stop the GPS location service from even trying to get a location from the satellites alone.  If the iPhone location service has really been built to do that then it would be a fairly monumental fail IMO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS

That would be no different to being somewhere without any mobile coverage, or operating in airplane mode.  "Assisted GPS" (aka A-GPS) is what it says: it's GPS - which only needs to be able to see the sky - augmented by using a terrestrial data network to download the almanac and ephemera data when the GPS subsystem starts up, which is much quicker than the 50 bit/s download speed from the satellites.

It's true that, in an environment which creates difficulties obtaining a strong and clear satellite signal, downloading data tables from the satellites may take a very long time, or simply fail.  But even with challenging conditions like that, not being able to access a terrestrial data source should not stop the GPS location service from even trying to get a location from the satellites alone.

Handheld GPS devices without A-GPS, or indeed any other connectivity beyond the satellite receiver, were quite widely used (and their use debated/derided at length on these forums and elsewhere) a good while before A-GPS became a 'thing'.

If the iPhone location service has really been built to rely entirely on A-GPS or else not work at all then that would seem to be a pretty retrograde step, and a fairly monumental fail IMO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GNSS

a) It’s v easy to turn the phone off!
Or b), turn the buzzer off, so you can be aware from vibration in pocket that someone’s tried to ring you.

Then look at list of ‘Missed calls’ later, at your convenience.

I have no problem at all with using it in this way, and not, for example, having it out when I’m talking to people, e.g. in a pub. I often ring people back when I’m walking between places.

Not helpful, it's also very easy to turn a phone back on.  It's a proper addiction and over time will rewire your brain to seek it out.  (Tom, I'm a fellow struggler, and want to do something about it too.  It's hard to even start trying.)

Well, I appreciate that addiction is a huge problem, but I’ve no idea what I can usefully suggest. Perhaps put a piece of temporary gaffer/masking tape over the switch to prevent yourself from ‘breaking your vow’? When at home one needn’t have it on one’s person if one’s not expecting some very important call. I think my phone is upstairs at the moment on the charger, and I’m not bothered. The great thing about the iPhone is that if you can’t remember where you’ve left it in the house when at home, you just use the ‘Find My’ app on your MacBook.

I assume you reinstall/switch it back on?

An somewhat extreme solution would be to get someone trustworthy to act as an "adult" and then set up your phone using the child settings. Can then lock everything down and if you want to change it you would need to ask them.

I'm literally about to do what you're on about for the exact same reasons once I've found the SIM removal tool that's somewhere in my house, I've tried the usage controls but just turn them off when I've run out of time especially if I've been working night shifts. My brother has done the same thing and is getting on pretty well.

I've picked one of the Nokia tough phones from a guy at work, I already run a second cheap phone smart phone for work that stays there when I leave to get me some separation from work and real life and the idea is to use the dumb phone as a phone and if I want to actually look at things online use my tablet, I'll let you know how I get on.

I had exactly the same problem and I found an app called Blocksite really helpful. It lets you block website urls but also apps you use on my phone. I then let my girlfriend set a password on it. Its about £12 a year as a cost so not too bad. 

I know that it is easy to turn off however I found that using my phone in greyscale/black and white really helped cut down screen time (and boosted my battery life as a nice little by product). I still have access to all my apps and functionality just no colours to suck me in and keep me scrolling for hours, as it becomes slightly more visually boring it is less addictive (at least for me).