Technology moves on. The same shift also happened with cars. I remember when there was pushback (ok at least hearing about the pushback) when cars started to use computers. Why does it have to so complicated? Why does everything need a computer?

You know to a certain extent those folks were right. But you look at cars today and I couldn't imagine my car not having a computer. Adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, apple carplay, I could go on.

The problem I see now is that privacy is still a pretty novel concept among the regular user so companies in the mean time can get away with overbearing data collection. My prediction is in the next 3-5 years, users will start to get savvier, and overbearing data collection will become a taboo and no company will do it because users will revolt.

I would rather give up on a smartphone than give up on my wireless headphones. Hell, I was without a phone for a few months a couple of years back and it felt liberating. It’ll be my excuse to be a permanent smartphone luddite.

I did the same, went without a phone for a few weeks (getting repaired/replaced) and it taught me a lot about how much I was overusing it. The most important change was turning off nearly all notifications (interruptions), but I've slid back into other bad habits like mobile reddit/HN since.

I've toyed with the idea of going back to a dedicated MP3 player for music and audio books, they should be cheaper and smaller than the last time I had one and with actual buttons they have a superior user interface (phones are versatile but a bit shit at everything). After that I could probably ditch a smart phone entirely.

I actually made a conscious effort not to idly listen to music anymore, so when I listen now, its purely for the enjoyment of listening to music. When I go for a walk, I listen to nature and let my mind drift without constant stimulation. I enjoy the music a lot more this way.

Yeah, I find 90% of what I use my iphone fir, I could really do without, like social media. When this phone dies, I plan on getting a cheap dumb one for emergency calls (I can still communicate with friends over IM on a laptop) and not replace the smartphone.

The experience taught me that I do not need to be stimulated all the time and I don’t need to be connected or reachable all the time. It felt liberating knowing that when I left home/office and was out of wifi reach, that I wouldnn’t get bothered by work requests. It felt liberating knowing that, while inconveint at times, I had to arrange a time and place to meet people, and we had to thennstick to it, instead of “i’ll call you when I’m near, whenever ir whetever that may be”.

The only reason I went back to having a phone is a family member got annoyed and bought me one, but a middle ground would have been to get a dumb (phone calls and SMS only) phone, rather than a smartphone or going without a phone completely like I did.