I know I said I was taking an indefinite break—and of course the second I felt like I’d have nothing to write about for the forseeable future, a long-awaited package arrived on my doorstep that also held a big life change inside.
The How
For almost two years, I had been waffling on ditching my smartphone. Sounds insane in this world, right? How can you even live without a smartphone? It’s not just the ability to scroll or post on social media (which I ditched most of a long time ago).
We do everything from banking to making grocery lists to tracking menstrual cycles to communicating with preschool on our phones. Not to mention that our phones are GPSs, calculators, cameras, and so much more. Ditching a smartphone requires rethinking how you do a LOT of things in life—not just how you communicate with others.
The Why
Anyways, back in February, I had taken the plunge and ordered a Lightphone (the II model, because I’m not made of money). It was “pre-order only” so it took alllllll the way until the middle of June to ship. Then setting it up, porting my phone number and manually inputing all of my contacts took another couple of days. But finally I was ready to power down my Galaxy S22 for the last time and take portable Internet access out of my pocket.
Now for the big question: why would I inconvenience myself by switching to a dumbphone (which the Lightphone, despite its sleek look, definitely is)?
That’s part of a much longer story that I’ve shared only a little of on here—here and here namely—but basically, I hate what social media over the past 7ish years has done to my brain. My oldest is about to turn 7 and I resent how much peace in motherhood that social media has taken from my life through these past few years.
A few particulars I’ve disliked:
- How IG/FB automatically fill your feed with things that make you anxious or angry (i.e. stories of kids getting cancer or drowning, political headlines, etc)
- How curated everything is on parenting/motherhood pages. I’m supposed to feel inspired? Nope, your content is definitely making me feel like crap instead. This goes from homesteading/crunchy/tradwife accounts all the way to “gentle parenting” influencers who I swear to God have never met a toddler in their lives…
- The comments! Oh, the comments. I started to feel like my brain created a mental comment section on everything I did with feedback that I imagined people online would give about my life. Watched half an hour of a show instead of washing the lunch dishes? Lazy. Sent my kids outside to play instead of carefully setting up a sensory activity? Bad mom. Kid choked on a grape? Don’t I know I need to be cutting their food into bite-sized pieces until they’re ten?!
- Suggested content vs. content from people/pages/groups I followed: I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen a post from an actual human I knew when I deleted Instagram, just Stories (which I don’t like watching–it’s the millennial in me coming out maybe, but short form content is not my jam)
Of course, I can still scroll away on my laptop now if I want to—but only at home, and mostly when I’m at home, I’m with the kids. Or writing in a journal, or working on a sewing project, or reading, or not online except for to-do’s. Hey, I’m even finding the time to blog on a work day!
Am I Enjoying Life Without a Smartphone?
Yes? I kind of wish that I hadn’t needed to make this change. But even though I hadn’t been spending as much time online as many people—kids don’t really allow for that—I still felt like the share of my mental energy that the online world consumed, was way too big.
I remember reading an article about life without a smartphone almost ten years ago, when we were living in California. (Wish I had bookmarked it to share!) It was part of what sparked my interest in digital minimalism. At the time, just starting this blog, I felt like I could never make that change, logistically and due to the fact that like most people, I was pretty addicted to social media at that point in time. In denial about it, but definitely addicted 😛
But the world online was also much smaller back then, and I think that as humans, we’re beginning to discover that there’s a limit to the amount of the world we would like to experience. Big tech spent a lot of time and money to convince people that knowing everything about everyone, everywhere on the planet, makes you worldly and means that you care about humanity. That being endlessly informed is the right thing to do.
We’re not built for that, though. We’re built for tribes and villages, no matter how you slice the story of human evolution.
I also think I’m not so unique in wanting to switch back to slower tech, longform content and generally just a more focused existence. I really enjoyed Jami’s video about taking a long break from content creation and getting a dumbphone. (If you’re not Christian some of this might not resonate, but I found her reflections on what social media/short form content is doing to our brains insightful regardless.)
On a related note, we also started receiving a paper newspaper again, and it’s been sweet watching the kids enjoy browsing the comics, check the weather, and ask about the front page headlines. Mornings are like 2006 in our house again, and in this little way, I’m happy to raise my kids in the past.
xx Claire