A lot of discussions online involve "you can disable notifications on a normal smartphone" or "you can use Screen Time to limit yourself" or, the worst, "just have some discipline". Imagine telling a cigarette or a drug addict "just have some discipline", it makes zero sense and shows a total lack of understanding of what is at stake.
There are various kinds of addictions, and saying "smartphone addiction" is a convenient way to hide more individual potential issues. For me, it is "internet addiction", and the ability to be connected any second with a small computer in my pocket is part of the problem. So replacing the object itself is, for my case, a necessary first step.
This article resonates a lot for me, and in 2026 the offer of "dumbphones" seems to have reached a level where people have some choice. To each their flavour, I'm testing one, let's see where that leads.
Everyday I have access to my computer, and since nothing is absolutely urgent I can book train tickets from home, read hacker news from home, etc... I spend several hours per day at home with my laptop so when I am outside I don't need to be online.
I don't listen music when outside since I feel more connected to where I am (sea shore, forest, city, etc...) if I don't listen music.
I nearly don't need take pictures anymore and when I do I have a camera.
I never had an account on social medias and even if I did I would have disable all notifications.
No need for a GPS, usually I know where I am going and if I don't I check on a map before and remind the path (exit metro station, first on left, second on right, done), if I get lost I ask to someone, then happen a true connection to a human being. Road trips: paper maps, I traveled alone from San Diego to New-York like that, including reaching a specific address in Chicago and then in New-York with a paper map. And I like the voice of my wife telling me "in 2km we must take the D25 on the right" (names of secondary roads in France starts with D).
We have a sailboat so we need gps when we sail and we have a rugged tablet. We also use it at home as a remote control for the DAC with Qobuz and for video calls with family with Signal. A smartphone can makes sense in several occasion, like does out tablet, but I don't feel the need to have one (a kind of mini computer) in my pocket all the time.
And since urgent calls can only comes from my wife or from the school (we have a son), when we are together with our son we don't take our dumbphone (nokia 105) with us.
I think anyone can buy a dumbphone for 20$ or € and try for a week.
