By Cristin Marker
In June of 2023, I visited what I still think is one of the most beautiful places in the country: Buttersville, Michigan. My family stayed at a quiet, unassuming campground on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan — perfect weather, sandy beaches and picturesque views of the lake. Even with the frigid water temperature, Buttersville is a hidden gem.
The campground had a tiny office where you could buy firewood and other essentials. It was also the only place where you could get even a weak Wi-Fi signal; cellular service and internet were non-existent everywhere else. And yet, despite being in this beautiful place with the people most important to me, I found myself absentmindedly drifting towards this weak little signal. For what? I’m not entirely sure — Gmail, work email, Teams, Reddit, Googling whatever random question popped into my head and necessitated an immediate answer, or a mix of all of the above.
Around this same time, my sister and I had started the painful and disorienting process of trying to get a Dementia diagnosis for my mom. At the young age of 64 and on the brink of retirement, she began showing symptoms that we couldn’t ignore, but the path to diagnosing this cruel disease is long and confusing.
Nothing highlights your warped relationship with attention like choosing Wi-Fi over the beach and your family, while simultaneously Googling ‘early signs of dementia’ about your own mother. In the months prior, I had taken some steps to reduce my screentime, but in this moment I realized that all my half-hearted attempts to ‘use my phone less’ weren’t actually changing anything — my phone still held more of my presence than the people and moments that actually mattered.
When I got home, after far too much agonizing over whether I could survive without Google Maps and 24/7 access to Reddit, I ordered a Sunbeam F1 flip phone and officially decided to “go dumb.” I’ve since moved on to the Light Phone III, but in the almost three years since that first plunge, my “dumb” decision has been more impactful than I ever could have expected. So I’m thankful for this opportunity to share the struggles, the hacks, and the weird little wins for anyone out there feeling even remotely dumb-curious.
Before we get into it, a few things about the rhythm of my life that have made sticking with a dumbphone feasible. None of this means you can’t make the switch if your situation is different, just that some specific things made the transition easier for me:
First, I work from home, and aside from being on call a few times a year, I’m not expected to be constantly reachable outside the usual 8–5. I’ve had to collaboratively set those expectations with both direct reports and leadership. Second, I rarely travel alone. Once or twice a year I go to conferences for work, and that’s when I notice the dumbphone friction most (more on that later). Lastly, before switching, I had already taken a few steps to reduce my phone use:I had quit social media, except for an old dusty Instagram page for my art that I was slowly starting to let go of, and I’d been sleeping with my phone outside the bedroom for over a year. Though, obviously, I still felt my relationship with it was… not ideal.
Since I learned most of this the hard way, let me offer a few tips that might make your transition less chaotic than mine, if you decide to take the plunge.
Invest in a quality dumbphone, ideally with a hot spot.
When you’re making a big lifestyle shift, you don’t want a device that feels like a punishment. Get a dumbphone that actually works with your carrier and won’t fall apart when you breathe on it. I had great experiences with both the Sunbeam Orchid and the Light Phone. They’re simple, durable, and feel intentional rather than “your phone from 2004 that you found in a drawer”.
Keep a “backup.”
A lot of modern situations a dumbphone simply cannot handle. Admitting this doesn’t mean you’re cheating, it means you live in the modern world. My family has a shared iPad, and I use it (paired with my Light Phone’s hotspot) for a few, very specific things:
multi-factor authentication for work (several times per week), ride-sharing (one or twice a year if I travel for work), and contactless parking (once or twice a month). Many downtown areas no longer use traditional parking ticket kiosks. Instead you have to scan a QR code and go to an app/website to pay. This is at once completely understandable (the operating cost is much lower) and totally infuriating when you’re not prepared for it.
Build out your toolkit.
We tend to use our phone as a multi-tool device for everything, and to be sure smartphones can do a lot of things. But plenty of other tools can do those things, too. You can use an old-school Garmin GPS (They still make these! And they still work!) and carry around a small notebook and paper (I jot down things I want to look up later — the Lightphone has a simple Notes app, but pencil and paper work better for me),and a Pebblebee card or any other tracker in case you lose your phone — especially if you’re dumb-phone curious for your kid.
Plan, plan, plan.
Some things will require a little extra planning when you no longer carry a pocket computer with you at all times. It’s not the end of the world, but it is an adjustment. I usually look up directions before driving somewhere unfamiliar, and that small bit of prep saves me a lot of stress. But still, you will absolutely run into the occasional moment of chaos: You might get lost, you might cause a mini traffic jam in a parking garage because you have no idea how to escape without scanning something, and you might have to call your wife and ask her to double‑check the family calendar because you, in fact, got the dates wrong and can’t pull up the appointment reminder in your email. You live. You learn. You hopefully laugh at yourself. And eventually you build new habits that don’t rely on your phone so much.
Start by figuring out how you actually use your phone — and what you genuinely want to change. A dumbphone isn’t a one‑size‑fits‑all solution. For some people, using a dumbphone as their daily communication device is perfect. For others, a hybrid approach makes more sense: using a Brick to “dumb down” their iPhone, or swapping their SIM into a simple phone on nights and weekends. If you travel a lot, this might be the most realistic setup. The goal isn’t purity — it’s finding a level of phone use that supports the kind of life you want.
Once you start making these adjustments, you’ll find that you’ve recovered a lot of time you’d previously been idling away. That can be great! But, it can also make backsliding into old habits easy, so replace the time with something. Why did you want to reduce screentime in the first place? To make space for hobbies? Be more present with your kids? To read or work out or just contemplate your life more? Then be prepared to do those things with your time.
There’s this shared experience people have in early sobriety called anhedonia — a fancy word for the lack of stimulation you feel when your brain is fully “on” again after years of numbing. It applies here, too. When you suddenly don’t have a phone to reach for in every idle moment, things feel… awkward. This discomfort is completely normal, and temporary. Knowing how to intentionally fill that void goes a long way in making the transition stick.
Let go of small inconveniences.
Plenty of things took time to adjust to, but some of my anxieties about switching to a dumbphone turned out to be big nothing-burgers.
Most importantly, all the money stuff: banking apps, uploading checks, contactless payments, and so on. I was weirdly terrified of not being able to check my bank balance while standing in the grocery store checkout line. Turns out, a microscopic amount of planning completely solves this. It has never once been an actual issue. As for Venmo, Google Pay, Apple Pay, etc.: I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been somewhere that only accepted mobile payments; it’s almost always a farmer’s market or a small artisan fair. Sometimes they take cash. Sometimes, I skip the purchase. Either way, it’s never felt like a crisis — just mildly inconvenient.
Next, kids’ school and activity apps. If you’re a parent, you already know: There is an app for absolutely everything — school updates, soccer schedules, lunch accounts, parent‑teacher messages, attendance checks, the whole circus. The good news is that most of these apps have a good old‑fashioned website version, and nearly every organization will offer an alternative way to communicate if you ask. Email, text alerts, weekly newsletters — they exist, they're just not the default option anymore. I have yet to encounter a single situation without an easy workaround. The bonus: I now check all of it intentionally once or twice a week, not through a dozen spurious interruptions a day.
Then, of course, the whole world of fitness apps. I used to obsess over heart-rate graphs and training-status badges on my Garmin app, convinced that a “good workout” lived somewhere inside the metrics. Letting go of that mentality has been nothing short of a relief. I still dust off my Vivoactive once or twice a month out of curiosity, but the constant data chase is gone, which, ironically, is one of the healthiest changes of all.
Accept the trade-offs.
All of that said, not everything was smooth sailing. A handful of changes really challenged me:
First: music. If I had to nominate one thing as the single biggest barrier to dumbphones — both from my experience and from watching Reddit melt down over it — it’s music streaming. There was that brief era between Napster piracy and Spotify dominance where we all paid 99¢ per song, and absolutely no one wants to go back to that. Most dumbphones, including the Sunbeam and the Light Phone, have music players, but they require you to buy MP3s and transfer them manually. It was annoying at first, but once I built up a library, it became a non‑issue — and honestly, I now prefer buying music.
Before going dumb, my Spotify recommendations became 100% AI‑generated neo‑classical sludge, thanks to listening to a “Deep Focus” playlist at work. Hunting for new releases every Friday is now something I genuinely look forward to. And yes, I’m one of maybe five people still borrowing CDs from the library. (Okay, I’m exaggerating. There were literally 126 holds in front of me for The Tortured Poets Department.) Buying music on Bandcamp or iTunes supports artists, which feels better than feeding fractions of pennies into the streaming void.
I’ve also gotten a lot more comfortable with simply… silence. It’s underrated.
And if none of that sounds remotely tenable for you, good news: You’re not out of luck. The Mighty Vibe 3 is a solid screen‑less streaming option, and some hybrid smart/dumbphones still allow Spotify or Apple Music.
Google Maps (or Apple Maps) is a big loss, no way around that. But it’s not actually as important as you might think. I bought a Garmin GPS when I first switched to the Sunbeam F1, and it was my saving grace in the early months. Over time, I needed it less and less. I live in a mid-sized city with predictable traffic patterns, so I can survive without the real-time traffic that Google Maps provides. I usually check Google Maps on my Desktop before I leave my house to get a general sense of where I’m going, and the Garmin stays in the car as a backup. The Lightphone has a navigation app with driving, biking and walking options, but I haven’t actually tried it yet.
Texting is also noticeably harder. When using the Sunbeam (flip phone), I never fully acclimated to T9 texting. I relied on voice-to-text almost exclusively, which was cumbersome. It also had this odd quirk of bleeping out curse words which felt like an overreach. Texting on the Lightphone, however, feels just as easy as it did on my old smartphone — and without the surprise censorship.
When I stopped carrying a smartphone, I basically stopped taking photos. My wife captures plenty of family moments, so we’re covered. The Lightphone has a solid camera, but after a few years of not taking photos, I haven’t really picked the habit back up.
I also have to be much more careful about losing my phone. When your phone is boring, you forget it everywhere. This is why I eventually bought a Pebblebee tracking card. I also tend to leave my dumb phone in the car or forget it when I leave the house to run errands. This can be mildly irritating for your spouse when they are trying to reach you… I’m slowly improving on this one.
Which brings me to the biggest downside: maintaining relationships. This was the hardest adjustment of all: accepting that I will be a little out of the loop. Without social media or a smartphone, I don’t get algorithmic nudges telling me it’s my best friend’s birthday, or that my sister snuck away to a cute weekend destination. Staying connected requires more intentional effort. I have calendar reminders to check in with certain friends. I set up occasional virtual lunches with old coworkers. When someone crosses my mind, I send a text to let them know. Even still, I know I miss updates sometimes.
I’m also trying to build more in-person community; I joined a few groups at my church and signed up for a beginner’s adult fiddle class, where we are all collectively terrible in a very endearing way.
And then there’s my mom. Her dementia has progressed to a point where she can’t use a phone anymore. I can reach her through my dad if I need to, but I would give anything to be able to call her. It’s a reminder that some connections can’t be maintained by technology — dumbphone or not — and how precious the ones we still have truly are.
Embrace the good side.
Alright — enough about the friction. Here are the benefits, expected and unexpected, that made the whole switch not just doable, but worth it.
First, I spend less money. I’m not sure if this has more to do with decreased exposure to advertisements or just not having the ‘Buy Now With 1 Click’ button at my fingertips at all times, but there are less Amazon boxes being delivered to my house, for sure.
Second, my relationship with work is sustainable now. Work apps were my biggest digital vice. I checked Outlook and Teams constantly — after hours, first thing in the morning, at the gym, during lunch. Nobody expected that from me; I put that pressure on myself. In cutting that constant connection, the quality of my work didn’t suffer at all. If anything, it improved. I’ve never written a phone email that wouldn’t have been better if I’d waited, let my thoughts settle, and typed it properly at my desk. And strangely enough, when I removed the ability to check work on autopilot, the mental obsession disappeared too. After 5 PM, I rarely think about work — a benefit I didn’t even know to hope for.
Third, modeling a good relationship with technology for my kids. I have a pre-teen, and she’s been asking for a phone since birth (standard for her generation). We’re not there yet, but the conversation is coming fast. And while tech decisions are universally difficult for parents, asking my kids for restraint feels a lot easier if I have some of my own. They know their first phones will be dumbphones, and so far they seem surprisingly okay with that. I think part of it is that they see me living with fewer digital distractions — not perfectly, but intentionally. It’s hard to argue with your mom about needing a smartphone when she’s over here navigating life with something that can’t even send the full range of emojis
Fourth, hobbies. Having more idle time has given me more space for the fun stuff. I still hit creative blocks, but I spend far less time scrolling through “inspiration for painting” and far more time actually… painting. I stopped posting my work on Instagram — I never had the patience to understand the algorithm, and watching my art get ignored started to feel like rejection. Now I sell at local artisan markets a couple of times a year and paint gifts for friends and family. Seeing someone’s genuine gratitude for something I made feels infinitely better than chasing likes ever did.
Recently, my dad gifted me one of his old fiddles, and I’m slowly learning to play without the paralyzing fear of sounding terrible. There’s something freeing about being bad at something and doing it anyway, when so much of life feels performative. And the biggest surprise: I’m reading. A lot. Since my high school years, I felt like reading fiction was a colossal waste of time. I just didn’t get it. Then last year I read Defending Jacob, and it all cracked open. I’ve read around twenty books in the last year — more than the rest of my life combined.
Lastly and most importantly, being present with the people I love. It sounds cliché, but this has been the most meaningful change of all.
Years ago, when my kids were infants, I remember holding them while they drifted to sleep and immediately reaching for my phone — bathing us both in that blue glow while I scrolled through God‑knows‑what. Now, on the rare occasions one of them still falls asleep on my shoulder, I’m counting their breaths. I’m wondering who they’re becoming. I’m quietly thanking God for the privilege of being their mom.
I am not present 100% of the time — by minute fifteen of hearing the full backstory of a dream they had last night, I promise you my mind is somewhere else entirely. But I notice more. I’m around more. I’m content in the small, simple ways of being with them. And that has been enough.
When I’m with my parents, the presence feels even more urgent. Nothing stings quite like pondering how many more times I will get to see them — how many more conversations I’ll have with my mom where she still knows my name, still recognizes my face. She postponed retirement and the chance to be a full‑time grandma, only to have the rug pulled out from beneath her. Now I want to give her every bit of love and attention I have, but I don’t know how much of it the disease still allows her to take in.
I will never be the perfect parent or daughter or wife. No amount of eliminating distraction will freeze time, or let me hold onto these seasons any longer than they naturally last. A dumbphone can’t slow my mom’s dementia, and it can’t guarantee that I savor every moment with my kids or my wife. But what it has done is this: It has given me back my attention — the only thing I actually have to offer the people I love while I still can.
A dumbphone didn’t fix my life. It just made it harder to look away from it. That turned out to be the change I needed. If this essay in any way sparked your interest, I highly recommend any of the following books:
- On technology and work: Deep Work by Cal Newport
- On technology and parenting: The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can't by Erin Loechner or The Anxious Generation by Jonathon Haidt
- On technology and spirituality: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer
- On technology and news consumption and divisiveness: Outrage Machine by Tobias Rose-Stockwell (which is actually the book that led me to Tangle!)
- On technology and attention: Digital Minimalist by Cal Newport or Stolen Focus by Johann Hari.
Cristin lives in the Kansas City area. She specializes in collecting hobbies and being delightfully mediocre at every single one. She also spends an unreasonable amount of time overanalyzing the meaning of life, despite having shown no measurable progress so far.
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