Why I threw away my smartphone
an explanation, and an apology
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about inconvenience.
It started, as things with me often do, while I was watching a video on the Pints with Aquinas YouTube channel, where Matt Fradd interviewed Chris Kaspar & Jon Lentz, creators of the Wisephone.
The Wisephone is essentially a dumbed-down smartphone lookalike. It has all the bare-minimum tools of a “dumb” phone — calling, SMS, GPS and a camera — but packaged in the sleek touchscreen exterior we all know and love. In the interview, Kaspar and Lentz share their journey of realising the need for a Wisephone; they talk about the importance of disconnecting from the internet and deepening relationships, and also resisting our own commodification. The interview is well worth a watch!
At some point in the interview, Matt mentions a new Wisephone feature that allows for music on the phone. However the way you’d go about it is slightly convoluted: you’d need to go to your computer, and drag specific mp3 files onto the phone dashboard. (What a throwback to 2013, am I right?) As the three men discuss this feature, Chris Kaspar brings up something very interesting:
Kaspar: One of the [philosophies] we have is that convenience is not the goal. Everything in big tech tries to make things more convenient, they try to make you more powerful, faster, better, quicker, whatever. And what we’re doing is pulling in the other direction, of patience and intentional inconveniences.
For some reason, this seriously blew my mind, because I’ve always thought of convenience as a very good thing, with absolutely no downsides. When UPI payments started coming up in India, I looked down my nose at anyone who refused to make them. All of their concerns with regards to safety and privacy felt like excuses to me. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how something so convenient could be bad for you.
I am, however, not of that opinion any longer.
Emails, books, and a jar of pickle
If I were a betting man, I’d wager that you’ve probably read the anti-texting manifesto I wrote last year. I say that because it is my most-read and most-shared newsletter till date!
In that newsletter, I put into words what I’ve been feeling about texting for quite some time now. To summarise: I understand it’s convenient, but at what cost! This isn’t me being dramatic. I truly think that texting — and specifically texting on WhatsApp — ruins the beautiful process of talking to someone you love. The sheer convenience just makes it so ugly.
I also wrote about the many merits of emails over texting (handwritten letters obviously being the preferred medium of written communication, but even I don’t have enough time for that). Since I published that newsletter, many old and new friends reached out to me to start a correspondence via email. And wouldn’t you know it, our friendships have flourished! And I no longer have to walk around with the guilt of never replying to their texts.
That’s a win-win situation if I ever saw one, and exhibit #1 of how there are some things more important than inconvenience.
Here’s exhibit #2: In case you missed it, my new year’s resolution for 2022 has been to give up piracy. I wrote about why and how I’m doing it right here. (Wow, I really document my life well for you guys, huh?)
The resolution has been going great so far! Here are, briefly, some perks of giving up piracy as I’ve experienced it:
I’ve been reading much less than I usually do, but also far more intentionally. By which I mean that my dumb magazine fiction reads have gone down significantly.
Through the process of borrowing physical books from other people, I have made a couple of new friends, and had a very long and entertaining bookish conversation with a friend’s dad.
I have appointments with a couple of friends to browse their at-home libraries. I look forward to spending that time with them!
Because I can’t read every book I want to, I have time for other things, like Bible study and family time.
I keep bringing up the books I’m reading in the hopes that someone will recommend (and offer!) a similar read. This has led to so many book conversations with people I didn’t even know to be readers!
But I know what you’re really curious about is the jar of pickle, so here’s exhibit #3 on the anti-convenience agenda:
A few weeks ago, for the first time ever, I made a silent retreat.
It was a couple of days in a lovely chapel and retreat home in Pashan, and it was a massive learning experience for me. Not least because I don’t think I’ve ever been silent for so long a time on purpose.
The goal of a silent retreat is to just be in the presence of God constantly. So speaking to other people is discouraged entirely; and especially at meal times. Have you ever sat at a table with twelve other people digging noisily into their lunch, and not said a word? Then you are a stronger woman than I, because I found every meal time exceedingly funny. Anyway, this anecdote isn’t about my inability to keep a straight face.
At meals, the priest who stayed at the retreat home would always bring out a jar of pickle from the kitchen. I think it might have been a lime pickle. I can’t tell you much about its taste, not being a pickle fan myself. But I’m telling y’all, this jar of pickle was the source of much entertainment that weekend.
Because there was only one jar of pickle, and about thirteen of us. The table we sat around wasn’t a small one, and so if someone on one side of the table was digging into the pickle jar, and someone on the other side of the table wished to have a go next, this would inevitably lead to some furious waving and motioning. Have you ever tried catching someone’s attention when you aren’t technically allowed to speak? How about when nobody’s technically allowed to speak? Okay, maybe this anecdote is a little about my inability to keep a straight face.
We eventually figured out a system where one of the guys with longer hands and more patience than the rest of us sat himself near the centre of the table and, by frequently looking up from his plate, was able to anticipate everyone’s pickle needs and send the jar of pickle where it was needed.
What I’m trying to say is that none of this ice-breaking and relationship-building (not to mention general hilarity) would have happened if there had been more than one jar of pickle.
Back to the phone problem
The point I’m trying to make in this newsletter is the same point Chris Kaspar tried to make in his interview with Matt Fradd: convenience isn’t always a good thing.
Does convenience make things efficient? Yeah. Texts functionally demand a quicker response time than emails. Downloading a book for free from the internet takes much less time than trying to source it legally. And multiple jars of pickle make meal time less complicated for a party of thirteen.
These things also, in a way, take us further away from meaningful connection. When we focus on speed and efficiency, we forget people.
It’s so easy to take the sheer reachability of our friends and family for granted, when getting in contact with them is a no-brainer. If you can Google everything, you’re much less likely to use that question to start a conversation with the people around you. Do you know what’s the most efficient way to conduct your meal times?
Eating alone. Standing up. At the sink.
The more I think of it, the more I see how convenience isolates us. Cities that boast of rapid transport systems and shorter wait times at fast-food joints are the same cities that report record-breaking levels of loneliness.
The irony of it is that things that are convenient are just… so… convenient. It is the easiest thing in the world to just go along with them.
So I knew it would be the most difficult thing in the world to not.
What it’s really been like
Many, many friends and people that I love have brought up good and important reasons for me to continue using my smartphone. But the thing that came closest to giving me pause was the first week that I really spent using my dumb phone.
It was, in all probability, the loneliest week of my life.
I hardly spoke to anyone. I sent emails that got no response. There were times when I was so exhausted and stressed that all I wanted to do was lie in bed and scroll the internet for an hour. And I couldn’t. And it sucked.
It felt like withdrawal dialled all the way down. Because, all things said, these were minor inconveniences. Little thorns. But boy, did they prick. I ended my first week with a dumb phone in tears on the floor of my bedroom, wondering why I was doing this at all.
I visited my dabba phone pros and cons list for a reminder. Did it take much more time for me to get in touch with people? Yeah. Did it slow down work a little? Yeah. Was I getting updates from college a day later than everyone else? Yeah.
Now to the pros list. Had I become more in control of my attention span? I had. Was I spending more face-to-face time with people? Not yet, but I could! Did I feel the freedom of not being chained to a supercomputer in my hands? I did.
These are, of course, over simplifications of both the pros and cons of ditching your smartphone. But really introspecting on the quality of my life made me realise that even the loneliness was worth it. It was simply the side effect of inconvenience. I had to learn how to intentionally connect with people, and that was going to take time, but it would also bring much more fulfilment.
I do want to end this newsletter with an apology, though, because for some people in my life it might have appeared to be an abrupt decision, even though it was six months in the making. I wasn’t able to adequately explain my reasons to many of you, partly because the past month has just been one big time crunch, but also because some of those reasons are personal and frankly a little embarrassing.
If you did have questions, though, I hope this newsletter answered at least a couple of them. I also hope it gave you one or two things to think about.
That’s all for today. As usual, drop a comment below or reply to this email if you’d like to chat. I hope you’re well.
Your friend,
Krys
respect for being able to use a dumb phone for more than a day!!