Switching to a Basic Phone in 2020? Yes., It’s possible

I have been a tech enthusiast ever since I graduated from college. I used to be a person who switches the smartphone once in every 6 months for different purposes. Off late, I realized that I am too dependent on my smartphone that most of my works relied heavily on the phone. Being a productivity lover, I thought that my works are very much simplified thru smartphones. But the truth is that the more it simplifies my work, the more disconnected I became from the real world.

Trust me guys, the amount of reliance on a smartphone is directly proportional to the amount of disconnection from the real world. I Used to buy groceries from the vendor nearby and the vendor used to talk a lot. After installing BigBasket and seeing some amazing offers, Reduced purchasing from the anna Kadai and Bigbasket have been serving me well. Now when I cross the shop, there’s a lot of dead air. As if it’s like we were once friends who don’t want to speak with each other again.

I used to swiggy a lot. When there’s sambar at home, swiggy it. When it’s 12 am and kinda have a craving, swiggy it! The more it was easier to swiggy, the more obese I was getting. After swiggying for about three years, I am at 80 from 61 kgs.

Big Billion Day, Amazon Great Indian Sale. Buy some non-sense products that are nowhere necessary but purchased for the sake of shopping satisfaction and offer utilization. The dumbest product which I ever purchased is an ipad camera connection kit which was 100% counterfeit.

In short, I never thought I would be able to do live without these apps.

With no particular order,

• Google Pay
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Youtube
• Netflix
• Prime Video
• Swiggy
• Google Maps

After kinds realizing that my smartphone addiction is little over the head. For a couple of weeks, I maintained an activity log as well as tracked the digital well being.

The summary of a day generally looked like this.,

• 08.00 am: Wake up and check Instagram for about 15 mins.
• 08.30 am: Read the Bible and Pray.
• 08.30 am to 09.00 am: Refresh and check Google News and Instagram Again.
• 09.00 am to 10.00 am: Learning some content from udemy but distractions will be generally thru youtube. Yes, Big boss promo, and the moment we watch the promo, our hands would automatically scroll thru the comments section where it is all about judgments about the show and the participants.
• 10.00 am to 11.00 am: Struggling to learn while scrolling Instagram and youtube comments
• 11.00 am to 12.00 pm: Household chores. Like Vessel washing or making the bed etc.
• 12.00 pm to 01.00 pm: Facebook generally or again youtube.
• 01.00 pm to 02.00 pm: Office work
• 02.00 pm to 02.30 pm: Lunch and Scrolling Insta
• 02.30 to 06.00 pm: Office Work with Some social media apps trying to distract
• 06.00 pm to 06.30 pm: Break. But, still Instagram.
• 06.30 pm to 09.30 pm: Office work. Generally meetings and sharing the works done in the first half of the day. Also watching IPL scores in parallel.
• 10.00 pm to 11.00 pm: Hotstar (Big Boss)
• 11.00 pm to untrackable time (Generally 01.00 am): Instagram and Facebook to see the memes of the day’s match as well as the big boss episode.

I thought I am trying to be productive with all the apps simplifying tasks but the apps were killing my time to be very frank. So I uninstalled these apps just like a boyfriend would uninstall Whatsapp if there is a fight with his girl on that day. The truth is that, even though i uninstalled these apps, I started using these apps from chrome.

Couple of things I tried which helped but none was like switching to a basic phone.

• Installed Less phone Launcher. This launcher allows you to only use up to 6 apps. Rest all locked out from the home screen. I added the only Notion, Google Pay, Expense Tracker, Maps.
• Switched on the digital wellbeing tracker on the phone which helped to understand my usage pattern
• Installed kindle and read books when I felt like using Instagram. Didn’t help even a percent even though I love to read.
• My alternate device is an iPad. After reading an article about how colors influence us, I switched it to the grayscale mode and my Ipad usage did reduce.
• Turned off notifications.

After trying out these steps for a few weeks, leaped switching to a basic phone and it’s like i am living teen years. Its 2008 again.

Now.,

• I carry the necessary cash with me and I purchase within the amount I have. No card or google pay anymore.
• There are no more amazon or Flipkart apps so credit cards are no more needed. Not getting lost to offers.
• Started buying groceries from the nearby shop or the market. Buying after bargaining is more fun than buying after offers.
• No more big boss promo notifications. So no more need of wasting time in the youtube comments section. Again Hotstar Subscription isn’t needed anymore. Also, unsubscribed from Netflix. Like about 15$ saved.
• Can’t swiggy. Started loving the Sambar.

Honestly, day looks more beautiful than ever! For those who say that you can’t live without a smartphone in 2020, it isn’t that tough. It’s actually easier than you think. If you ditch your smartphone, In return, you get Time and Money.

Meet my Nokia Basic Phone Pro Max which has more security features and my bank apps can’t be compromised anymore because I can’t install bank apps in the first place. It doesn’t have a mammoth 6000Mah battery but the charge is like a tank. Charge comes for about a week. What else is more important?

Also, in the background, the grayscale iPad. Look how much it’s uninteresting. I tried watching youtube on the gray screen couple of times but I really can’t use it for over 10 minutes.

P.S: I still have my Instagram account which I rarely use in the grayscale screen and it isn’t addictive anymore.

Thanks for reading!

#productivity #digitalwellbeing #nomoresmartphone #digitaldetox #unplug