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| Cartoon by Manu Cornet (http://ma.nu/) |
This is not a blog post to convince you to go smartphone free. It's not even a blog post about my experience of going smartphone free. It's a blog post about how to go smartphone free.
So, you've realised you want to ditch your smartphone - smart move! The robots aren't quite in control of you yet. But how do you do it? It's basically a massive 'find and replace' exercise. Let's start with what you'll need to get rid of and what you'll need to replace.
An obvious step, but one that is easily put-off which makes for a huge fall at the first hurdle. Just go out and buy one. If money's not an issue and you really want to make a statement there are some ludicrously cool, ludicrously expensive handsets out there - usually available through an exclusive Kickstarter campaign or similar. But they are totally unnecessary and they spoil some of the side-benefits of going smartphone free (i.e. how cheap it can be). Get yourself to the supermarket and pick up something dirt cheap - my SIM-free Alcatel 1066G (the name must be a wry reference to how not-up-to-date it is) does the job perfectly and it cost me £14 - you can get it on the supermarket's own network for half that price.
This was a step I took whilst I still had a smartphone to try to reduce number of times I got it out of my pocket to check the time (because that inevitably led to me checking more than just the time). I'd also previously set my smartphone to turn off automatically at 9pm and back on at 7am (another supposed hack to reduce smartphone use) meaning I needed something else that had an alarm. Again, for me, cheap is the order of the day. A £9.99 Casio works a treat - mine's even bright blue. Time + alarm = I don't even need to get my dumbphone out of my pocket anymore.
Smartphones are great at providing entertainment in those little bits of time inbetweentimes. But so are books. I find that non-fiction and poetry that can be consumed in smaller chunks (with fiction you lose the plot if you are only reading little bits here and there) are ideal. It makes you look and feel super-intelligent and I reckon they're a better potential conversation starter - no one would dare ask what you were reading on your smartphone but people do strike up conversations about books as they're less personal. Granted, they're often more cumbersome than a phone, but holding a book in your hand instead of the phone that used to be permanently glued there isn't such a hardship.
I'm willing to bet that one of the most inhibiting factors for people considering getting rid of their smartphone is the lack of access to GPS/WIFI/data connection-enabled mapping apps (yes, I mean Google maps). When I first got rid of my smartphone I had no map and I made a few errors resulting in us not reaching our destination. Then I bought a road atlas for £2 and we've been fine ever since - all the parts of our 2-week summer holidays that I navigated were done successfully using a paper map. I've gained a better geographical understanding of the places we've been and I, as a map-lover, have enjoyed poring over it whilst planning journeys.
Dig out a digital camera
So many people had one of these before smartphone came around - I managed to find two lurking around the house. I do enjoy taking photos but I've discovered many of the photos I took were for the express purpose of sharing spontaneously on social media - something that without a smartphone you don't really do. At first I took a compact digital camera with me but found I wasn't really using it. On holiday we used the DSLR that my wife has for her business to record those golden family moments. This is a potential expensive outlay but one which might be balanced out by not having those expensive monthly payments for a smartphone contract.
Make some plans
It's very true that you might begin to miss the on-tap social interaction that smartphones provide. The quality of such interactions is questionable - in fact, Science appears to show that social media only provides low-quality social interaction - but that doesn't mean that you won't miss it when you say goodbye to your smartphone. To combat this, send a text or make a phone call arranging to meet up with friends or family in order to enjoy some real face-to-face time. Of course, not all of us live close to our relatives so a phone call might have to suffice. If video-calling is valuable to you and your loved ones (I totally get that it might be) then consider having a tablet device which you don't cart around with you the whole time in order to provide this service.
I've heard absolute smartphone-junkies bemoan the lack of time to do other things that they actually consider to be more worthwhile. The fact that you no longer check your smartphone every 4 minutes (that's the average) and that you suddenly spend literally hours less per day looking at that little rectangle of light means that you can do all those things you used to love before the smartphone robbed you of your time. Get your guitar back out; start work on that book you've been thinking of writing; take those dancing lessons; spend more time with your loved ones - whatever it is, do it more. These kinds of activities will also help you combat the potential withdrawal symptoms.
Replacing other apps
There are other potential replacements, depending on what you use your smartphone for. I would be happy to guarantee to anyone that there will be another gadget out there or just a more traditional way of doing things (even if it's a slower way, there's every chance you'll still actually save time because you'll be able to do it distraction-free) that mean that however much you think you rely on your smartphone in your personal life, you could ditch it forever and not look back. One such example for me was getting hold of a Mighty Vibe audio player which plays Spotify audio on the go (see my review here).
Just do it
You'll never know what it's like until you do it. You'll never know what your personal version of going smartphone free looks like. It takes a can-do attitude (ridiculous that I'm speaking of getting rid of a piece of technology in such strong terms) and not a what-if attitude. You have to just do it - for yourself, and for the people around you who are losing you to all the time you spend with your phone.
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