I went back to a dumb phone and life has been better

A one month review of the Light Phone III and my experience of leaving the smartphone life

Dear readers,

I have often heard, “smartphones are just a tool like anything else. It’s the way we use them that matters.”

The problem for me was, yes, that’s true, and yet I don’t use my phone like I use a salad spinner. 100% of the time I use a salad spinner, I am spinning salad or veggies. With my iPhone, I can confidently state that 80% of the time, I watch YouTube podcasts and follow politics incessantly before bed and in the morning.

I was never able to use the “tools” an iPhone gave me well. Instead, I got trapped in the algorithmic machine that funds big tech companies.

I eventually came to a pretty simple and humbling conclusion: I am not able to use my smartphone well without being distracted or wasting time.

As Jesus says in the Gospel of Mathew, ^“If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”

This wisdom is the opposite of the “technology is neutral” argument. And I was determined to try it for myself.

So I bought a salad spinner equivalent of a phone.…