It’s probably not radical to say that I don’t like using my phone. Mine is a Redmi A5. It cost me about £70. I originally got it as an emergency backup when my Pixel 4 exploded, but never got around to replacing it.
It’s slow. The camera is shit. It barely holds a 5G connection. Lately it just doesn’t send WhatsApps sometimes, like it knows I resent it and it’s trying to fuck with me.
I still have the impulse to pick it up. To doomscroll, or check my emails again. These devices are made to be addictive, so I don’t blame myself, but it’s driving me mad.
Here’s a list of stuff I like looking at more than my dumb phone.
Tamagotchi
I impulse bought this in the line at Hobbycraft, and it’s been am amazing spend.
Every now and then I take a minute to give it some bread, or wipe the pixelated poop off the screen. And then it dies. And I make a new one and start again.
It’s almost completely replaced the urge to get my phone out in quiet moments. Which is a miracle.
Local newspaper
There’s a lot of horrible stuff going on in the world, but almost none of it is happening in the town I live in. We got a physical subscription to our local paper and it’s been great. Yeah there’s a little bit of doom but it’s mostly news about nurses that have won local awards, or plans for a new building in the town center.
And there are puzzles! A pen and paper and twenty minutes with the sudoku is so much nicer than a Reddit binge, and probably about as productive.
That’s the trap with phones I think. You feel productive but you rarely retain anything you read, and even if you do it’s not that good for you individually.
People watching
My family used to people watch quite a bit on holidays. You find a cafe with tables outside, get a good drink, then sit and watch the world go by.
I still love doing this. Just being a wallflower and seeing what happens around me. Imagining what people are up to, who they are, how they feel. I’m naturally a busy person and it’s a small reprieve to just enjoy the world around me sometimes.