What were some of the things that nibbled away at ya?
I've been in the same boat, so i got myself a cheap phone (actually a hand-me-down from my mom in the form of a Redmi 6A lol), flashed lineageos and didn't install gapps. Basically as dumb as a smartphone gets. Then you get fdroid and aurora store and you're good to go. However, i use that phone only when i need to focus, so about 5-6 hours a day, so unfortunately i still have a smartphone. So maybe it would be worth it for you to look into that sorta thing, definitely has helped me regain control.
I posted here back in August about a 30 day dumbphone challenge. I'm still using that flip phone, though I've un-dumbed it since then. Still, it's just inconvenient enough that I don't make habit of endlessly scrolling.
with US Mobile
been looking at them for awhile to cut our phone costs. how do you like 'em, and which 'network' do you use?
I'm using their T-Mobile rebrand, and it's just as good as T-Mobile ever was, excepting you don't get any 5G access.
Though, tbh, I don't care, since I'm paying $5 a month for 500 minutes, 500 texts, and 500mb of data. 5G would be a total waste since, I mean, even the 4G stuff can eat all my data allocation in like 30 seconds anyways.
I think it’s really cool you tried it out for as long as you did.
Are you “all in” on smartphone now that you know it’s essential?
I still strongly dislike a lot of the dynamics around them.
They're still privacy nightmares, they're still running black-box software that's not auditable and doing who the fuck knows what in the basebands, and they're still covered in sensors running apps that are trying to scrape every byte of that data to profile you and sell that data to anyone who asks.
But, ultimately, I was spending too much time trying to stand on a principle that wasn't really doing anything (I still use computers, and the websites of most of the apps I was using before, and still having a huge amount of data ingested since I didn't live in a cabin in the woods) other than making my own life more complicated and causing shit like missing invites to things because my phone just didn't get the SMS, or resorted the arrival order, or failed to download a MMS message or whatever whereas everyone on a modern phone was like, fine.
So I won't say I'm all-in, or that I like them, or that I've even changed my mind that they're little spy rectangles that are making us all stupid, but uh, too much in modern life is making the assumption you have one to completely unplug without losing an awful lot.
It's near impossible to live without anymore
All of our bills are paid online, our kids' teachers communicate with us through apps, the school has its own app for communicating events and closures
Even just ordering fast food is done through apps. It's still an option to order in person, but won't be able to get special deals or earn points without their app.
My TV even works best with an app instead of just a regular remote
It's never lost on me when there is an annoyingly loud commercial but I can't mute the TV because the app is updating and restarting
Never thought I would one day be telling people to "hold on my remote control is updating and restarting"
What a time to be alive
It seems to me you are suffering from cognitive dissonance. You want to not use a smart phone and you deem that the "correct" way. You get frustrated with yourself because you can't live the way you think is right.
Don't beat yourself up, it's hard enough out here already. Getting by without a smart phone is hard and you aren't to blame for that. If at any point you feel addicted, identify you values and make a decision whether or not to put it away. Don't let your subconscious control what you consciously want.
Or I could have read this all wrong, I'm just some douche on the internet.
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