[jdsnape]

I tried a dumbphone but it was a frustrating experience.

I recently bought myself a cheap old Android device and installed LineageOS on it. I then removed the play store and browser, and installed a handful of apps that are useful and that I don't get sucked into (personal email, whatsapp, maps, kindle). If I need to (e.g. for a trip) I can load the browser and whatever apps back on

It's the only thing that has worked _for me_ to stop randomly scrolling through rubbish when I'm bored, after having tried parental controls etc. on an iPhone

[gspencley]

My aversion to smart phones has always been two-fold:

1. I don't like being interrupted. Land lines drove me crazy when the phone would ring unexpectedly (and it was often telemarketers). So in the early days of people starting to buy cell phones, my view of them was that I would be carrying around this thing that would constantly make noise and interrupt me wherever I went. So I default hated mobile phones in general for the longest time.

2. Once I finally bought a cell phone, and I was observing how much people were using them in general, I felt like it was a device that I didn't really control. On the desktop I use Linux and have since the late 90s. I'm a "power user" who likes to customize everything, use as much FOSS software as I can, I loathe bloatware and don't like sending my data to remote servers. So I really only used a smart phone to text my family and occasionally use a web browser if I was out in public and needed to look something up.

As for #1, I realized that smart phones in general have a killer feature that landlines never did: you can set your default ring tone to silence and then give people you actually care about a custom ring tone.

And for #2, I eventually bought a Google Pixel and installed GrapheneOS. Now I feel less hatred of the device. I still don't use a smart phone as much as most people do, but I feel like it's mine and I'm in control of it. There's no bloatware or spyware, I install the FOSS apps that I want to use and I customize the thing to my liking. It feels like running Linux on my desktops ... I'm the user & the master of the machine. It exists to serve me, not the other way around.

If I didn't use my phone as an mp3 player, reach for a web browser occasionally or temporarily install proprietary apps when I'm on vacation (Uber, My Disney Experience etc.) I'd probably get a dumb phone myself.

[sourcepluck]

I've done basically the same thing, but without lineage involved. Most / all of what you say there can be achieved with stock Android. One can download F-droid, disable the play store and google services, disable 15 other things, disable the stock browser, and do the same little trick of having no browser, and then easily downloading one occasionally if there's an actual need, then re-deleting. This works for me if I have it as a rule that I never re-enable the stock browser.

Not suggesting you do this, your approach is better I would say. Just for anyone reading, it is possible to do something very similar with a standard Android phone, and roll back if required. I only have a few apps from F-droid installed, and never feel the lack of something. Used OpenStreetMaps once or twice when in a new city for navigating offline with a downloaded map, for example.

[jdsnape]

Thanks - that is a good point. I mentioned lineage only to say I was initially put off because I didn't want to spend lots on a new phone; but this way I was able to get a 2018 model running the latest version of Android.

After some more research, I think it is possible to achieve the same thing on iOS using management profiles.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Do you consider HN scrolling through rubbish? I ask because that's my "doomscroll", but I feel I get value from it