> The smartphone is a failed experiment and I believe people are starting to wake up to that fact.
If it is an experiment, what was the hypothesis? What conclusion contradicted that hypothesis, thus making it a failed experiment? Who conducted the experiment?
> Every useful thing your smartphone does, there is always a replacement. And sometimes it’s significantly better than the dumbed down version found in smartphone apps.
I agree that there are often better *specialized* solutions than the smartphone has to offer (e.g., reading e-books on a Kindle vs. smartphone), but what about devices like [the Light Phone II](https://www.thelightphone.com/)? Would you roll that sort of thing in with our smartphone pandemic?
> 1. Social. You don’t need a computer in your pocket that gives you 24/7 access to all forms of social media. You can check that stuff just fine on a laptop, tablet or other computer.
> 3. Camera. You don’t need a camera in your pocket at all times to take pictures of your daily life. Digital cameras are small enough to carry in your pocket if you need to take photos, and the files on those memory cards will be a lot easier to manage than the nonsense and insanity that is photo cloud storage (this is an entire post just in itself that I’ll write soon).
> 4. Texting. You don’t need to be able to text people. Besides GPS (we’ll look at that in a second), this is probably the biggest hurdle people have who are thinking about getting rid of their smartphone. Texting has become the number one method of communication. And yet so much is lost through texting.
That might be true for the casual social relationships that primarily operate in person or after work hours, but I am in a couple of group texts at work that often represent critical business communications such as arranging team meetings or reporting status on time-sensitive projects. Given, it's use is relatively casual and unique to the disproportionately small scale we're working on as a 5-person startup.
> The joy of interrupting someone in mid-sentence
Haha. This is perhaps a good loss for my manners, but I do appreciate a timely interruption in conversation.
> The ability to easily go back to something someone said earlier in the conversation and follow-up. Try doing that with texting and you basically have to start referencing Section 2, paragraph 3, line 2 like you’re some kind of lawyer or something.
This has been somewhat resolved with the "reply" features of iMessage or Signal.
> You can also message people on laptops now.
[Signal](https://signal.org/#signal) has been great for me on this front as it's both secure (end-to-end encryption) and convenient (works on either laptops or smartphones interchangeably).
> my life got better after I stopped texting.
I *want* to know specifically how it got better. What changed? What did you get in return for your sacrifice? Jocko Willink says "Discipline Equals Freedom" (as did many before him, but his is the most commonplace contemporary), so what freedom did you gain from the ascetic discipline of doing without?
> A lot of people don’t even really use email anymore for important stuff...
What else are they using? I can almost believe this, but I don't see any alternatives presented. Is it tools like JIRA, Notion, Slack, or Teams?
> you’d be amazed how interesting, entertaining and educational it is to simply watch people.
I've appreciated Morgan Harper Nichols' occasional commentary on this as an enneagram 5w4 (the "iconoclast" or investigator).
[Morgan Harper Nichols on Twitter: "Everything I share here is inspired by real stories. 1. People submit their stories via DM and email. 2. I write/make something for them. I randomly select people to write/create for weekly. 3. All stories are kept private, and I send you what I make, then share it elsewhere. pic.twitter.com/ezALZjx1Ku / Twitter"](https://twitter.com/morganhnichols/status/1126664736332894208)
> Or you can buy CDs, vinyls or cassette tapes and listen to music on one of those players.
I've enjoyed having a record player on a shelf high enough to keep our 3 year old from scratching the vinyls or easily breaking things. It's become an almost nightly after-dinner routine for us to listen to some jazz album (usually Artie Shaw: His Clarinet and Orchestra) and do random dances and spins in the living room before bath, story, and bedtime. It's changed how I interact with music as a part of family and home life.
Naturally, that doesn't do anything for me while I'm out and about, but it's great at home. I do still use Spotify for offline podcasts and music.
> And for people who are really concerned about GPS, getting lost, traveling, etc., I would encourage you to simply buy a mountable GPS device for your vehicle. This’ll get the job done fine.
For what it's worth, Apple Maps (which I recently switched to on my smartphone) uses TomTom's data behind the scenes. So, if you get a TomTom, you should be just as in the know as an iPhone!
> 2. Notes. You don’t need a notes app in your pocket all day. You can write things down in a journal, on a napkin or even an electronic document on your computer. There’s a bunch of other really good hardcopy substitutes to the notes app on your smartphone.
I'm excited to try the reMarkable 2 e-ink writing tablet in the next month or two pending budget approval with my wife (we've naturally been prioritizing other things).
> 3. Voice Memos. You don’t need a voice recorder all the time. If you do, and you’re a musician capturing melodies or lyrics, or you’re writing a book and recording ideas, or you’re just trying to get things down so you remember them, small voice recorders are cheap, small and easy to use. You can carry it in your pocket or car and it will be there for you when you need it. And it’ll be a whole lot easier to manage and store files you need later on your voice recorder or computer after you’ve downloaded them. I know because I used to use Voice Memos and a lot of them I can no longer find because of the nonsense that is cloud storage.
> When I finish a day's work, I head up into the hills for a hike. I take a pocket tape recorder because I know that as my surface mind empties with the walk, another part of me will chime in and start talking.
The word "leer" on page 342... it should be "ogle"
You repeated yourself in Chapter 21. The last sentence is just like that one in the middle of Chapter 7.
That's the kind of stuff that comes. It comes to all of us, every day, every minute.
These paragraphs I'm writing now were dictated to me yesterday; they replace a prior, weaker opening to this chapter. I'm unspooling the new improved version now, right off the recorder.
He goes on to talk about his theory that "The Muse" or "The Self" is a divine act of communication that helps us organize our thoughts and "like God, set out to create a universe — a book, an opera, a new business venture" with the direct support of the divine nature.
It's a great chapter that inspired me to start recording myself periodically in voice memos while out on a walk.
> Comment below if you agree or can think of other supposedly crucial things smartphones do that make them so necessary.
The only other topics/use-cases coming to mind for me are calendars and budgets. Tracking transactions ("balancing the checkbook") and managing appointments are some of my most common uses for the smartphone that would need to be replaced by my journal, a wall calendar, and/or some other device like a tablet.
[You Don't Need Your Smartphone](https://justinpalm.substack.com/p/you-dont-need-your-smartphone)
> the naked marketing slogans that *everyone needs one*
What is a "naked" marketing slogan? I picture a wolf in sheep's clothing as the clothed marketing slogan, but when and how did the smartphone marketing take off its "allurements [that] cover nothing but the charnel-house within" ([Herman Melville, Moby Dick](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/516450-is-it-that-by-its-indefiniteness-it-shadows-forth-the))?
> The smartphone is a failed experiment and I believe people are starting to wake up to that fact.
If it is an experiment, what was the hypothesis? What conclusion contradicted that hypothesis, thus making it a failed experiment? Who conducted the experiment?
> Every useful thing your smartphone does, there is always a replacement. And sometimes it’s significantly better than the dumbed down version found in smartphone apps.
I agree that there are often better *specialized* solutions than the smartphone has to offer (e.g., reading e-books on a Kindle vs. smartphone), but what about devices like [the Light Phone II](https://www.thelightphone.com/)? Would you roll that sort of thing in with our smartphone pandemic?
> 1. Social. You don’t need a computer in your pocket that gives you 24/7 access to all forms of social media. You can check that stuff just fine on a laptop, tablet or other computer.
What about getting off social media altogether? What about actually *being* social with other humans? This feels like a missed opportunity to call out what Sherry Turkle calls expecting "more from technology and less from each other" in her book *[Alone Together](https://www.amazon.com/Alone-Together-Expect-Technology-Other-ebook/dp/B01N9ZL5BH/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=alone+together&qid=1634555368&sr=8-1)*.
> 3. Camera. You don’t need a camera in your pocket at all times to take pictures of your daily life. Digital cameras are small enough to carry in your pocket if you need to take photos, and the files on those memory cards will be a lot easier to manage than the nonsense and insanity that is photo cloud storage (this is an entire post just in itself that I’ll write soon).
I have certainly appreciated Google Photos for its ability to categorize and detect photo metadata (e.g., search for a person by name in your photo archive), but I still feel the dichotomy of convenience and sacrificed privacy that comes with any artificial intelligence at scale. This feels like a great opportunity to make mention of [Marshall McLuhan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan)'s [Understanding Media](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DIEZI7U/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0) (which I have yet to read) or Neil Postman's [Amusing Ourselves to Death](https://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business-ebook/dp/B0023ZLLH6/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=amusing+ourselves+to+death&qid=1634555782&sr=8-1) (which we have both read, I believe).
> 4. Texting. You don’t need to be able to text people. Besides GPS (we’ll look at that in a second), this is probably the biggest hurdle people have who are thinking about getting rid of their smartphone. Texting has become the number one method of communication. And yet so much is lost through texting.
That might be true for the casual social relationships that primarily operate in person or after work hours, but I am in a couple of group texts at work that often represent critical business communications such as arranging team meetings or reporting status on time-sensitive projects. Given, it's use is relatively casual and unique to the disproportionately small scale we're working on as a 5-person startup.
> The joy of interrupting someone in mid-sentence
Haha. This is perhaps a good loss for my manners, but I do appreciate a timely interruption in conversation.
> The ability to easily go back to something someone said earlier in the conversation and follow-up. Try doing that with texting and you basically have to start referencing Section 2, paragraph 3, line 2 like you’re some kind of lawyer or something.
This has been somewhat resolved with the "reply" features of iMessage or Signal.
> You can also message people on laptops now.
[Signal](https://signal.org/#signal) has been great for me on this front as it's both secure (end-to-end encryption) and convenient (works on either laptops or smartphones interchangeably).
> my life got better after I stopped texting.
I *want* to know specifically how it got better. What changed? What did you get in return for your sacrifice? Jocko Willink says "Discipline Equals Freedom" (as did many before him, but his is the most commonplace contemporary), so what freedom did you gain from the ascetic discipline of doing without?
> A lot of people don’t even really use email anymore for important stuff...
What else are they using? I can almost believe this, but I don't see any alternatives presented. Is it tools like JIRA, Notion, Slack, or Teams?
> you’d be amazed how interesting, entertaining and educational it is to simply watch people.
I've appreciated Morgan Harper Nichols' occasional commentary on this as an enneagram 5w4 (the "iconoclast" or investigator).
[Morgan Harper Nichols on Twitter: "Everything I share here is inspired by real stories. 1. People submit their stories via DM and email. 2. I write/make something for them. I randomly select people to write/create for weekly. 3. All stories are kept private, and I send you what I make, then share it elsewhere. pic.twitter.com/ezALZjx1Ku / Twitter"](https://twitter.com/morganhnichols/status/1126664736332894208)
> Or you can buy CDs, vinyls or cassette tapes and listen to music on one of those players.
I've enjoyed having a record player on a shelf high enough to keep our 3 year old from scratching the vinyls or easily breaking things. It's become an almost nightly after-dinner routine for us to listen to some jazz album (usually Artie Shaw: His Clarinet and Orchestra) and do random dances and spins in the living room before bath, story, and bedtime. It's changed how I interact with music as a part of family and home life.
Naturally, that doesn't do anything for me while I'm out and about, but it's great at home. I do still use Spotify for offline podcasts and music.
> And for people who are really concerned about GPS, getting lost, traveling, etc., I would encourage you to simply buy a mountable GPS device for your vehicle. This’ll get the job done fine.
For what it's worth, Apple Maps (which I recently switched to on my smartphone) uses TomTom's data behind the scenes. So, if you get a TomTom, you should be just as in the know as an iPhone!
[TomTom GPS - Traffic Alerts, Maps, & Apps](https://www.tomtom.com/en_us/navigation/)
> 2. Notes. You don’t need a notes app in your pocket all day. You can write things down in a journal, on a napkin or even an electronic document on your computer. There’s a bunch of other really good hardcopy substitutes to the notes app on your smartphone.
I'm excited to try the reMarkable 2 e-ink writing tablet in the next month or two pending budget approval with my wife (we've naturally been prioritizing other things).
[reMarkable 2](https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2)
> 3. Voice Memos. You don’t need a voice recorder all the time. If you do, and you’re a musician capturing melodies or lyrics, or you’re writing a book and recording ideas, or you’re just trying to get things down so you remember them, small voice recorders are cheap, small and easy to use. You can carry it in your pocket or car and it will be there for you when you need it. And it’ll be a whole lot easier to manage and store files you need later on your voice recorder or computer after you’ve downloaded them. I know because I used to use Voice Memos and a lot of them I can no longer find because of the nonsense that is cloud storage.
Steven Pressfield's [The War of Art](https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Steven-Pressfield-ebook/dp/B007A4SDCG/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=war+of+art&qid=1634557218&sr=8-1) has a great use for voice recorders (smartphone or non).
> When I finish a day's work, I head up into the hills for a hike. I take a pocket tape recorder because I know that as my surface mind empties with the walk, another part of me will chime in and start talking.
The word "leer" on page 342... it should be "ogle"
You repeated yourself in Chapter 21. The last sentence is just like that one in the middle of Chapter 7.
That's the kind of stuff that comes. It comes to all of us, every day, every minute.
These paragraphs I'm writing now were dictated to me yesterday; they replace a prior, weaker opening to this chapter. I'm unspooling the new improved version now, right off the recorder.
He goes on to talk about his theory that "The Muse" or "The Self" is a divine act of communication that helps us organize our thoughts and "like God, set out to create a universe — a book, an opera, a new business venture" with the direct support of the divine nature.
It's a great chapter that inspired me to start recording myself periodically in voice memos while out on a walk.
> Comment below if you agree or can think of other supposedly crucial things smartphones do that make them so necessary.
The only other topics/use-cases coming to mind for me are calendars and budgets. Tracking transactions ("balancing the checkbook") and managing appointments are some of my most common uses for the smartphone that would need to be replaced by my journal, a wall calendar, and/or some other device like a tablet.
This was very pleasurable to read. Channeling Nabokov at points.