Latest news with #LightPhone
Business Insider
19-05-2025
- Business Insider
Is America headed for an age of dumb phones?
Count him among the "appstinent" — one of a growing number of Americans, mostly millennials and Zoomers, vowing to live a life free of endless scrolling. "Screen time was just crowding out other things," says Thurmond, who's 41. "That's not where I want to get my entertainment, and it's not really where I want to have any substantive conversation. I prefer to do that kind of stuff in the analog world." Three years ago, Thurmond became worried that his smartphone use was making him less present, less social, and less productive. He traded in his Android for a Light Phone, a so-called " dumb phone" that allows him to text and make calls but doesn't give him access to email and social media. With its simple interface and limited features, it's built to ward off phone addiction. The switch wasn't totally seamless. Thurmond, a self-professed "long-winded texter," struggled with the phone's E Ink keyboard, which can take some time getting used to. And not being glued to his phone also meant he was slower to respond to texts, which quickly became a point of friction with his now ex-girlfriend. But as he reduced his screen time, Thurmond realized he didn't need his Android as much as he thought he did, and that many of the Light Phone's inconveniences were actually "benefits in disguise." He started calling people rather than texting, which led to more satisfying interactions. He began each morning sketching out the day's goals on a whiteboard, rather than "just reacting to things" like emails. And instead of using his Android to unlock the Citi Bikes he uses to get around New York, he requested a $10 key from the company. "I was more relaxed, because I didn't have all this stuff rattling around in my brain," he says. "I was just more fulfilled by things in day-to-day life." "Appstinence," a play on abstinence, was coined by Gabriela Nguyen, a 24-year-old graduate student at Harvard. Nguyen, who grew up in Silicon Valley and got her first iPad when she was 9, came to view her addiction to phones and social media as the enemy of productivity and living in the moment. She found her calling in encouraging people to wean themselves off their phones. Last year, she started a club called APPstinence at Harvard and launched a website of the same name. "After adopting this lifestyle, it felt like this incredible, secret, competitive edge that I wanted to share with other people," Nguyen says. Still, even Nguyen isn't completely phone-free. She has three dumb phones, including the Light Phone, which she alternates between based on their usefulness to whatever task she's tackling. For her, appstinence is a bridge to a healthier relationship with technology. "Leaving social media is not a resignation," Nguyen says. "It's not this idea that you've been defeated, now you have to do a walk of surrender." As evidence mounts of our collective phone addiction — and the toxic effects of social media — there's a growing appetite for the Gospel of Appstinence. Searches for dumb phones have been surging. From Amsterdam to Brooklyn, there's a growing trend of nightclubs requesting that revelers leave their phones at home — or at least keep them off the dance floor. Adults like Thurmond and Nguyen, who grew up when the internet and social media were just taking off, are perhaps the most desperate to reclaim the attention and focus that technology has taken from them. But lately, the appstinence movement has also begun to capture teens and college students, many of whom grew up seeing their phones as integral to their social lives. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that most American teens have access to smartphones — and nearly half reported being online "almost constantly." Samantha Palazzolo was in sixth grade when she got her first iPhone, and she spent most of her middle and high school years glued to it. "I would stay on social media, scrolling instead of going to sleep, even if I was tired," says Palazzolo, who's now 20. She began questioning her social media addiction during her freshman year at the University of Illinois. After waking up one morning feeling deeply embarrassed by an Instagram story she'd posted the night before, she began reflecting on how social media was consistently killing the vibe. "Going into college, everyone was telling us, 'You're going to remember these moments forever,'" she says. But her phone was distracting her from her actual experiences. "We were going out to these parties and people would just be scrolling on their phones," she says. So she and two friends bought flip phones — an old technology that was totally new to them. She loved how the antique-looking gadget served as a natural conversation starter in social situations. And to declare her newfound freedom from social media, Palazzolo turned — where else? — to social media. Her TikTok paean to flip phones went viral, garnering over 18 million views. She also joined a growing number of Gen Zers on TikTok who unbox and offer reviews of their favorite dumb phones. Cult favorites include an HMD Barbie-branded model of the Cat S22, a flip phone compatible with most apps but with a small enough screen to deter doomscrolling. Sen Killingsworth was an even earlier convert to appstinence. At 15, he traded in his smartphone and started hosting phone-free events at his high school. A few of his peers parodied his events in mocking posts on Instagram — precisely the kind of online bullying he was hoping to get away from. But Killingsworth stuck with it. Today, he runs the Reconnect Movement, which hosts phone-free events across college campuses "to create a fully engaged, uninterrupted social environment that Gen Z rarely experiences." Killingsworth, who's now 22, recently partnered with Nguyen and Jonathan Haidt, the author of " The Anxious Generation" and a leader in the growing phone-free school movement. Together, they've linked up with Truth Initiative, which advocates against youth nicotine addiction, to plan an international "day of appstinence" to encourage Gen Zers to delete their social media apps. "It's like a muscular atrophy of our social skills," Killingsworth says of our phone-centric lives. Luckily, he's found that the condition is temporary if it's caught early enough. "They come right back in 15, 30 minutes," he says. Thurmond's journey to appstinence started in 2022. Craving more in-person interactions as the COVID pandemic wound down, he began hosting monthly digital detox events, which attracted people whose phone use had exploded during the lockdowns — including one man who had spent most of his time messaging with an AI chatbot. The attendees, Thurmond realized, were far more diverse than the people in the algorithm-fueled bubbles of his social media. At one of the events, Thurmond invited Joe Hollier, a cofounder of Light Phone, to make a presentation. The Light Phone is unabashedly a niche product — a "simple device" that's "designed to be used as little as possible." Given its price tag of $699 for the latest model — $100 more than an iPhone 16e, but with far fewer features — only a true believer would consider buying one. Most of the customers are between 25 and 40. "The whole value is in it not distracting you, but giving you the peace of mind that if there's an emergency, you have a phone," Hollier says. The idea for the Light Phone came to Hollier a decade ago. At the time, he and his cofounder, Kaiwei Tang, were taking part in a Google incubator program for creatives who were developing apps. But Hollier and Tang found the experience to be more insidious than inspiring. In the world of phone apps, addiction wasn't a byproduct of success — it was the goal."If an app was sticky, then there was a business model to be made," Hollier says. He wanted to do the opposite. Hollier developed a prototype of the Light Phone while completing his bachelor's degree at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Since then, riding the wave of the appstinence movement, he's sold 100,000 phones. In 2023, the company collaborated with pgLang, Kendrick Lamar's creative agency, to release a limited-edition Light Phone. It sold out in less than a day. But Hollier has also witnessed the limitations of his dumbed-down phone in our hyper-online world. One couple gave a positive report after taking a Light Phone out with them on a date. Being unplugged was so refreshing, they said, that it gave them butterflies again. But the evening took a turn when they couldn't order an Uber, and they got into an argument as they tried to figure out the best way to get home. And even the biggest boosters of appstinence can find themselves pulled back into the habit of constant scrolling. Palazzolo, who just graduated from college, says she still uses her flip phone a few nights a month when she goes out with friends. But she expects to start using her smartphone more as she hunts for a job and perhaps moves to a bigger city. A dumb phone may be liberating, but a digital age requires digital tools. "It's really impractical," Palazzolo says. For those who are sticking it out, the hardest thing about liberating themselves from smartphones has been existing in a world of phone addicts. Thurmond feels this acutely when traveling around New York City and navigating hordes of people staring into their devices or using them to create content. It's like giving up alcohol while living 24/7 in a bar.
Business Insider
18-05-2025
- Business Insider
The age of dumb phones is here
Matt Thurmond seems like a poster child for tech-forward millennials. He runs an AI-assisted platform for mortgage professionals. He leads a nonprofit that connects longevity researchers, investors, and startups. He was the copresident of a technology conference at Harvard, where he got his MBA. So it's a little surprising that Thurmond is almost never on his phone. Count him among the "appstinent" — one of a growing number of Americans, mostly millennials and Zoomers, vowing to live a life free of endless scrolling. "Screen time was just crowding out other things," says Thurmond, who's 41. "That's not where I want to get my entertainment, and it's not really where I want to have any substantive conversation. I prefer to do that kind of stuff in the analog world." Three years ago, Thurmond became worried that his smartphone use was making him less present, less social, and less productive. He traded in his Android for a Light Phone, a so-called " dumb phone" that allows him to text and make calls but doesn't give him access to email and social media. With its simple interface and limited features, it's built to ward off phone addiction. The switch wasn't totally seamless. Thurmond, a self-professed "long-winded texter," struggled with the phone's E Ink keyboard, which can take some time getting used to. And not being glued to his phone also meant he was slower to respond to texts, which quickly became a point of friction with his now ex-girlfriend. But as he reduced his screen time, Thurmond realized he didn't need his Android as much as he thought he did, and that many of the Light Phone's inconveniences were actually "benefits in disguise." He started calling people rather than texting, which led to more satisfying interactions. He began each morning sketching out the day's goals on a whiteboard, rather than "just reacting to things" like emails. And instead of using his Android to unlock the Citi Bikes he uses to get around New York, he requested a $10 key from the company. "I was more relaxed, because I didn't have all this stuff rattling around in my brain," he says. "I was just more fulfilled by things in day-to-day life." "Appstinence," a play on abstinence, was coined by Gabriela Nguyen, a 24-year-old graduate student at Harvard. Nguyen, who grew up in Silicon Valley and got her first iPad when she was 9, came to view her addiction to phones and social media as the enemy of productivity and living in the moment. She found her calling in encouraging people to wean themselves off their phones. Last year, she started a club called APPstinence at Harvard and launched a website of the same name. "After adopting this lifestyle, it felt like this incredible, secret, competitive edge that I wanted to share with other people," Nguyen says. Still, even Nguyen isn't completely phone-free. She has three dumb phones, including the Light Phone, which she alternates between based on their usefulness to whatever task she's tackling. For her, appstinence is a bridge to a healthier relationship with technology. "Leaving social media is not a resignation," Nguyen says. "It's not this idea that you've been defeated, now you have to do a walk of surrender." As evidence mounts of our collective phone addiction — and the toxic effects of social media — there's a growing appetite for the Gospel of Appstinence. Searches for dumb phones have been surging. From Amsterdam to Brooklyn, there's a growing trend of nightclubs requesting that revelers leave their phones at home — or at least keep them off the dance floor. Adults like Thurmond and Nguyen, who grew up when the internet and social media were just taking off, are perhaps the most desperate to reclaim the attention and focus that technology has taken from them. But lately, the appstinence movement has also begun to capture teens and college students, many of whom grew up seeing their phones as integral to their social lives. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that most American teens have access to smartphones — and nearly half reported being online "almost constantly." Constant scrolling has changed us in ways large and small. Samantha Palazzolo was in sixth grade when she got her first iPhone, and she spent most of her middle and high school years glued to it. "I would stay on social media, scrolling instead of going to sleep, even if I was tired," says Palazzolo, who's now 20. She began questioning her social media addiction during her freshman year at the University of Illinois. After waking up one morning feeling deeply embarrassed by an Instagram story she'd posted the night before, she began reflecting on how social media was consistently killing the vibe. "Going into college, everyone was telling us, 'You're going to remember these moments forever,'" she says. But her phone was distracting her from her actual experiences. "We were going out to these parties and people would just be scrolling on their phones," she says. So she and two friends bought flip phones — an old technology that was totally new to them. She loved how the antique-looking gadget served as a natural conversation starter in social situations. And to declare her newfound freedom from social media, Palazzolo turned — where else? — to social media. Her TikTok paean to flip phones went viral, garnering over 18 million views. She also joined a growing number of Gen Zers on TikTok who unbox and offer reviews of their favorite dumb phones. Cult favorites include an HMD Barbie-branded model of the Cat S22, a flip phone compatible with most apps but with a small enough screen to deter doomscrolling. Seán Killingsworth was an even earlier convert to appstinence. At 15, he traded in his smartphone and started hosting phone-free events at his high school. A few of his peers parodied his events in mocking posts on Instagram — precisely the kind of online bullying he was hoping to get away from. But Killingsworth stuck with it. Today, he runs the Reconnect Movement, which hosts phone-free events across college campuses "to create a fully engaged, uninterrupted social environment that Gen Z rarely experiences." Killingsworth, who's now 22, recently partnered with Nguyen and Jonathan Haidt, the author of " The Anxious Generation" and a leader in the growing phone-free school movement. Together, they've linked up with Truth Initiative, which advocates against youth nicotine addiction, to plan an international "day of appstinence" to encourage Gen Zers to delete their social media apps. "It's like a muscular atrophy of our social skills," Killingsworth says of our phone-centric lives. Luckily, he's found that the condition is temporary if it's caught early enough. "They come right back in 15, 30 minutes," he says. Thurmond's journey to appstinence started in 2022. Craving more in-person interactions as the COVID pandemic wound down, he began hosting monthly digital detox events, which attracted people whose phone use had exploded during the lockdowns — including one man who had spent most of his time messaging with an AI chatbot. The attendees, Thurmond realized, were far more diverse than the people in the algorithm-fueled bubbles of his social media. At one of the events, Thurmond invited Joe Hollier, a cofounder of Light Phone, to make a presentation. The Light Phone is unabashedly a niche product — a "simple device" that's "designed to be used as little as possible." Given its price tag of $699 for the latest model — $100 more than an iPhone 16e, but with far fewer features — only a true believer would consider buying one. Most of the customers are between 25 and 40. "The whole value is in it not distracting you, but giving you the peace of mind that if there's an emergency, you have a phone," Hollier says. Appstinence may be liberating. But a digital age requires digital tools. The idea for the Light Phone came to Hollier a decade ago. At the time, he and his cofounder, Kaiwei Tang, were taking part in a Google incubator program for creatives who were developing apps. But Hollier and Tang found the experience to be more insidious than inspiring. In the world of phone apps, addiction wasn't a byproduct of success — it was the goal."If an app was sticky, then there was a business model to be made," Hollier says. He wanted to do the opposite. Hollier developed a prototype of the Light Phone while completing his bachelor's degree at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Since then, riding the wave of the appstinence movement, he's sold 100,000 phones. In 2023, the company collaborated with pgLang, Kendrick Lamar's creative agency, to release a limited-edition Light Phone. It sold out in less than a day. But Hollier has also witnessed the limitations of his dumbed-down phone in our hyper-online world. One couple gave a positive report after taking a Light Phone out with them on a date. Being unplugged was so refreshing, they said, that it gave them butterflies again. But the evening took a turn when they couldn't order an Uber, and they got into an argument as they tried to figure out the best way to get home. And even the biggest boosters of appstinence can find themselves pulled back into the habit of constant scrolling. Palazzolo, who just graduated from college, says she still uses her flip phone a few nights a month when she goes out with friends. But she expects to start using her smartphone more as she hunts for a job and perhaps moves to a bigger city. A dumb phone may be liberating, but a digital age requires digital tools. "It's really impractical," Palazzolo says. For those who are sticking it out, the hardest thing about liberating themselves from smartphones has been existing in a world of phone addicts. Thurmond feels this acutely when traveling around New York City and navigating hordes of people staring into their devices or using them to create content. It's like giving up alcohol while living 24/7 in a bar.
Observer
11-04-2025
- Observer
Can dumber phone cure ‘Brain Rot'?
Dear readers, I have a confession: I am suffering from an ailment that the younger ones call 'brain rot,' the inability to think deeply after too much scrolling on my phone. These days, it's tough to even finish a book. Plenty of people have this problem. So many, it has birthed a category of minimalist tech products striving to rid us of distractions, from the Ai Pin, the now defunct artificially intelligent lapel pin that took notes, to phones with only basic features. The latest example, the $600 Light Phone III, from a New York City startup, is a stripped-down phone that does barely anything. The newest version, which began shipping in March and is set for a broader release in July, can place calls, send texts, take photos, show map directions, play music and podcasts; and not do much else. There is no web browser. There is also no app store, meaning there's no Uber to hail a ride, no Slack and no social media. There isn't even email. 'You use it when you need to and when you put it back it disappears in your life,' said Kaiwei Tang, CEO of Light, the startup that has developed multiple iterations of the Light Phone over the past nine years.I was curious to see if the Light Phone could cure me of brain rot, so I used it as my primary phone for a week. There were moments I enjoyed it. While waiting for a train, resting at the gym or eating alone, I was not tempted to stare at the phone screen and I felt more mindful of my surroundings. Phone calls sounded nice and clear. The maps app did a fine job navigating me around town. It reminded me of simpler times when we used phones primarily to converse before putting them away to focus on other tasks. But over the week, the downsides of a dumber phone chipped away at my enjoyment; and overall I felt more stressed and less capable. I suddenly found myself unable to get into a train station, look up the name of a new restaurant or control my garage door. Some of that has less to do with the Light Phone itself, which is a so-so product and more to do with how society as a whole has become dependent on advanced smartphone features. Here's how my week went running errands, commuting and going out with a lower-tech phone. GETTING STARTED When I set up my review unit of the Light Phone over the weekend, the phone, which looks like a black rectangular slab, was pretty bare-bones. The phone's menu was a black screen showing a white-text list of its features: phone, camera, photo album and alarm. To add more tools, I had to use a web browser on my computer to access a dashboard, where I could install features like a maps app, notepad and timer. Now that I was ready to go, I was determined to live, at least for a while, without my iPhone. COMMUTING TO WORK On Monday morning, I started my commute to work, taking a train from Oakland, California, to San Francisco. When I arrived at the station, I realised I couldn't enter without my iPhone because years ago I had converted my physical transit pass, the Clipper Card, into a virtual one stored in my smartphone's mobile wallet. The Light Phone lacked a mobile wallet to load the virtual transit card, so I sheepishly went back home to get my iPhone and ultimately showed up to the office a half-hour late. TEXTING FRIENDS AND TAKING PHOTOS I added a few of my closest friends to the address book on the Light Phone and sent them text messages explaining my experiment. Typing on the device's keyboard felt sluggish in part because there was no autocorrect feature to fix typos. As a result, conversations were terse. Hilarity ensued when I sent people photos. Poorly lit and grainy, the images looked as if they were produced with a phone camera from at least 15 years ago. RUNNING ERRANDS One afternoon, I had to drop off an Amazon return at a UPS Store. I chose the most convenient shipping option, which involved showing a QR code for scanning. The problem? The Light Phone had no email app or web browser to download the code. Instead, I loaded it on my computer screen and snapped a mediocre picture with the phone. When I brought the package to UPS and presented the photo, I held my breath, hoping that the image was clear enough. The UPS employee held the scanner up and, after three attempts, I heard a beep and a shipping label printed. What a relief, but also, what a hassle. Bottom Line While I admire the goal of the Light Phone, my experience demonstrates there's nothing we can realistically do or buy to bring us back to simpler times. So many aspects of our lives, including getting around town, working, paying for things and controlling home appliances, revolve around our highly capable smartphones. Tang, Light's CEO, acknowledged that the Light Phone was not for everyone but added that parents have considered buying the phone for their children to be less distracted in school. The company is also working on adding more tools, such as mobile payments and the ability to request a Lyft car. — The New York Times
New York Times
06-04-2025
- New York Times
Can Using a Dumber Phone Cure ‘Brain Rot'?
Dear readers, I have a confession: I am suffering from an ailment that the younger ones call 'brain rot,' the inability to think deeply after too much scrolling on my phone. These days, it's tough to even finish a book. Plenty of people have this problem. So many, it has birthed a category of minimalist tech products striving to rid us of distractions, from the Ai Pin, the now defunct artificially intelligent lapel pin that took notes, to phones with only basic features. The latest example, the $600 Light Phone III, from a Brooklyn start-up, is a stripped-down phone that does barely anything. The newest version, which began shipping in March and is set for a broader release in July, can place calls, send texts, take photos, show map directions, play music and podcasts and not do much else. There is no web browser. There is also no app store, meaning there's no Uber to hail a ride, no Slack and no social media. There isn't even email. 'You use it when you need to, and when you put it back it disappears in your life,' said Kaiwei Tang, the chief executive of Light, the start-up that has developed multiple iterations of the Light Phone over the last nine years. 'We get a lot of customers telling us they feel less stressed out, they become more productive, they become creative.' I was curious to see if the Light Phone could cure me of brain rot, so I used it as my primary phone for a week. There were moments I enjoyed it. While waiting for a train, resting at the gym or eating alone, I was not tempted to stare at the phone screen, and I felt more mindful of my surroundings. Phone calls sounded nice and clear. The maps app did a fine job navigating me around town. It reminded me of simpler times when we used phones primarily to converse before putting them away to focus on other tasks. But over the week, the downsides of a dumber phone chipped away at my enjoyment, and over all I felt more stressed and less capable. I suddenly found myself unable to get into a train station, look up the name of a new restaurant or control my garage door. Some of that has less to do with the Light Phone itself, which is a so-so product, and more to do with how society as a whole has become dependent on advanced smartphone features. Here's how my week went running errands, commuting and going out with a lower-tech phone. Getting Started When I set up my review unit of the Light Phone over the weekend, the phone, which looks like a black rectangular slab, was pretty bare-bones. The phone's menu was a black screen showing a white-text list of its features: phone, camera, photo album and alarm. To add more tools, I had to use a web browser on my computer to access a dashboard, where I could install features like a maps app, notepad and timer. Now that I was ready to go, I was determined to live, at least for a while, without my iPhone. Commuting to Work On Monday morning, I started my commute to work, taking a train from Oakland, Calif., to San Francisco. When I arrived at the station, I realized I couldn't enter without my iPhone because years ago I had converted my physical transit pass, the Clipper Card, into a virtual one stored in my smartphone's mobile wallet. The Light Phone lacked a mobile wallet to load the virtual transit card, so I sheepishly went back home to get my iPhone and ultimately showed up to the office a half-hour late. Going to the Gym I ran into a similar snag one evening at my rock climbing gym. To get in, members use their phones to log in to the gym's website and generate a temporary bar code that gets scanned at the entrance. Because the Light Phone lacked a web browser, I couldn't create a bar code, so I had to wait in line at the front desk. Texting Friends and Taking Photos I added a few of my closest friends to the address book on the Light Phone and sent them text messages explaining my experiment. Typing on the device's keyboard felt sluggish in part because there was no autocorrect feature to fix typos. As a result, conversations were terse. Hilarity ensued when I sent people photos. Poorly lit and grainy, the images looked as if they were produced with a phone camera from at least 15 years ago. 'Retro!' one friend said in response to a blurry photo of my daughter. 'Wow, that's bad,' another friend said about a dimly lit photo of my corgi, Max. Light's founders said they were proud of the Light Phone camera, which has a nostalgic feel to it. Running Errands One afternoon, I had to drop off an Amazon return at a UPS Store. I chose the most convenient shipping option, which involved showing a QR code for scanning. The problem? The Light Phone had no email app or web browser to download the code. Instead, I loaded it on my computer screen and snapped a mediocre picture with the phone. When I brought the package to UPS and presented the photo, I held my breath, hoping that the image was clear enough. The UPS employee held the scanner up and, after three attempts, I heard a beep and a shipping label printed. What a relief, but also, what a hassle. Lunch Date On another afternoon, my wife and I went out for an impromptu lunch date. I backed the car out and then had to ask my wife to use her iPhone to close our garage door with the app MyQ. (Our physical garage door opener stopped working years ago.) Then, we were trying to remember the name of a new sushi restaurant we had recently read about on a food blog. I couldn't help dig up the blog post on the Light Phone. Eventually, we made a guess and ended up at the wrong restaurant. It was nice, though, to have lunch together without the temptation to check my email. Bottom Line While I admire the goal of the Light Phone, my experience demonstrates there's nothing we can realistically do or buy to bring us back to simpler times. So many aspects of our lives, including getting around town, working, paying for things and controlling home appliances, revolve around our highly capable smartphones. This Light Phone experiment reminded me of glamping: paying a lot to have an artificially crummier experience. I can't think of many people whose jobs would let them realistically use a Light Phone as their only phone. Too many of us rely on tools like Slack and email to communicate. The Light Phone might be better suited as a secondary leisure phone, similar to a weekend car, for people to unplug when they are off work. But even then, the camera quality may be a deal breaker for some. Mr. Tang, Light's chief executive, acknowledged that the Light Phone was not for everyone, but added that parents have considered buying the phone for their children to be less distracted in school. The company is also working on adding more tools, such as mobile payments and the ability to request a Lyft car.
Vox
03-04-2025
- Vox
A skeptic's guide to quitting your smartphone
is a senior technology correspondent at Vox and author of the User Friendly newsletter. He's spent 15 years covering the intersection of technology, culture, and politics at places like The Atlantic, Gizmodo, and Vice. If you'd asked me a decade ago how I felt about my phone, I would have said: 'Wow, I love it.' And also: 'How could you even ask me such a thing?' 2015 was a quieter, happier time. Barack Obama was president, 'Uptown Funk' by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars was the No. 1 song, and I had a sleek, slim iPhone 6 in my pocket. We're now up to the iPhone 16, and while you already know the other details about our current reality, I will confess that I hide my phone from myself, on a daily basis, in order to feel something real. User Friendly A weekly dispatch to make sure tech is working for you, instead of overwhelming you. From senior technology correspondent Adam Clark Estes. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. This sorry state of affairs led me to the Light Phone, a minimalist device that promises freedom from infinite feeds. The third generation of the device, which debuted in late March, represents a radical rethinking of what a smartphone can and should do, cutting off users from distracting features while directing them toward simple tools they need to thrive in a digital world, like a phone and a calendar. There is no web browser, no app store, no forms of entertainment — not even a game to distract you. The Light Phone 3 is intentionally boring but useful. That's the sales pitch anyways, and it arrives in a world where many are nostalgic for a time when we were far less subservient to our technology. I recently met Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang, the co-creators of the Light Phone and co-founders of its parent company, Light, in their Brooklyn, New York, workshop, where they walked me through the development of the Light Phone 3. They'd given me the device to test out ahead of time, and while I loved the gadget in concept, I had a brutally hard time letting go of my iPhone, which I hate by the way. But how could I give up the many apps I've become dependent on to do my job and keep up with my family? How could I get through the day without my algorithmically generated Spotify playlists? How would my brain work without the ability to Google random questions when they pop into my head? 'I think that moment when you find yourself pulling out the Light Phone for the fifth time and realizing it does nothing, that's like a very profound initial Light moment, where you're like, 'Now, what?'' Hollier told me. About nine out of 10 Americans own a smartphone, and I'd guess many of them have passed a point of no return, when it comes to connected living. It feels impossible for some people — parents, knowledge workers, Spotify fanatics — to live without a smartphone. For others, it's simply inconvenient. But ditching your smartphone is a way of liberating your free time and winning back your attention, which has led to a movement of people buying gadgets that are specifically designed to bridge the gap between our dumb phone past and a future where technology use is more intentional. I'm about a week into trying to join this movement. It's not easy, but it sure does seem peaceful. Why you might need an 'intentional' phone Smartphones and dumb phones — think flip phones or phones that can only place calls and send messages — are familiar categories to most people. But intentional phones — phones designed to limit interactions with the device and to help users focus on being present — are a new category, arguably created by the Light Phone itself. When you do something on an intentional phone, you intend to do it, and then you stop using the phone. The original Light Phone, 'your phone away from phone,' launched as a Kickstarter campaign in May 2015. It was roughly the size of a credit card and could only place voice calls. That meant you could disconnect for an afternoon and go on a hike but remain reachable. The device sold out, while Hollier and Tang built its successor, the Light Phone II, which shipped in 2019. This phone had an e-ink display, like a Kindle, which refreshes too slowly to support easy scrolling — and came with a handful of simple tools, like messaging and a music player, but lacked a web browser and email. So far, Hollier and Tang have shipped over 100,000 of these devices, and their staff still repairs the old ones in their Brooklyn studio. 'We don't want the device to try to fight for your attention, or be shiny. We wanted it to be calm, low key, and just disappear, even when you use it.' — Kaiwei Tang, co-creator of the Light Phone The Light Phone 3 takes things a stage further — but not too much further. Instead of the gritty e-ink screen, the new model has a black and white OLED display with a coating that makes it less shiny. There's a very basic camera on the back, which Hollier and Tang say is really for documenting things or taking pictures of receipts, since you can't post any photos from the phone. There's an updated directions tool, and a directory that works a bit like the Yellow Pages: You search for something, say a coffee shop, and the tool provides a list of nearby businesses with some basic information, like their phone number and hours. There's also a new podcast app that lets you download episodes of podcasts and take them with you when you're out, but you can't look up new content while you're out. The operating system is built by Light, and there's no data harvesting. 'We don't want the device to try to fight for your attention, or be shiny,' Tang told me. 'We wanted it to be calm, low key, and just disappear, even when you use it.' It's actually remarkable to use a piece of technology that's designed to be used as little as possible. It's beautifully boring. The Light Phone 3 is also just plain beautiful — a slab of black anodized aluminum that fits neatly into a shirt pocket and just works. It retails for $799, although you can preorder one now for $599. The Light Phone 2 is still available for $299. There are other intentional phones on the market that give users more digital liberties. The Bigme Hibreak Pro runs a version of Android and supports all apps but has an e-ink screen that discourages scrolling. The Unihertz Jelly Max is a tiny smartphone that has a color screen, but it's so small that you'd be hard-pressed to watch a YouTube video on it. The Mudita Kompakt is a lot like the Light Phone 3, except it has an e-ink screen and a few more functions. Then there's the Sidephone, which starts shipping this year and can run critical apps, like Uber, WhatsApp, and Spotify, while otherwise offering minimal features. It's actually designed to work alongside a smartphone, with a dedicated phone number you only give to close friends. When I first started using it, the Light Phone 3 reminded me of my digital life not 10 but 20 years ago, when I left the house with an iPod, a Motorola Razr, a notebook, and a Nikon film camera. (Fun fact: Tang actually helped design the Motorola Razr way back when.) Each thing had its own purpose, and if I didn't need any one thing, I left it at home. If I got bored with my devices, I simply had to find something else to do. Today, there's something naive about imagining a return to life in 2005, when I was in my 20s. I have a wife, a baby, and a job that demands knowing what's happening in the world on a daily basis. Leaving the house with just a Light Phone 3 feels like a fantasy, albeit one that is appealing on days when I can't escape the ping of Slack messages or the buzzes of my news alerts. Toward a philosophy of digital minimalism It was about a decade ago that our digital world started to get really dopamine-driven. Twitter was ascendant, and within a couple years, Facebook would buy Instagram and usher in an era of algorithmic feeds designed to keep users engaged. This is also when Gen Z started to come of age. It didn't take long for the first generation to live their entire lives online to have second thoughts about social media, smartphones, and technology in general. Gen Z adults are now leading the way in incorporating dumb technology into their lives, according to a 2024 Morning Consult poll. Millennials, like myself, are very close behind. Light says that 70 percent of its users are between 18 and 35 years old, and that 56 percent of them only use Light Phone. Hollier and Tang told me last week that Light Phone adoption has kind of happened in that order, too: Gen Z jumped on board first and more millennials seem to be buying the devices lately. I have to wonder if it's because more millennials are noticing that they're reflexively checking their feeds while also watching their kids at the playground. I've done it, and it sucks. Young parents are also realizing that the Light Phone is an excellent way to stay connected to their children without giving them unbridled internet access. Related The surprising thing I learned from quitting Spotify Jose Briones, a long-time Light Phone user, spent years and thousands of dollars in the smartphone upgrade cycle. A few years ago, Briones became more interested in finding technology that would help him optimize his time, instead of robbing him of hours spent scrolling. Briones now runs a YouTube channel where he reviews intentional phones, like the Light Phone, and describes himself as a digital minimalist. 'More people are coming to the realization that they don't want to live their lives through a screen, but instead, they want to experience it with their own eyes,' Briones said. Digital minimalism is the philosophy that drives a lot of the conversations around the Light Phone. The term was popularized by Georgetown University computer science professor Cal Newport, who also coined 'deep work' in 2016 and published a book about digital minimalism in 2019, at the same time Marie Kondo's Netflix show dropped and not long before the pandemic made us all digital maximalists. 3 easy things to do Nobody should feel helpless in our app-saturated world. But you can update a few simple settings to make your phone less habit-forming. Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, offered three tips in a 2018 Vox video that still make sense today: Turn off all nonhuman notifications Make your screen grayscale Restrict your home screen to essential, everyday tools There are now communities for all corners of this movement. Briones is a moderator in the subreddits for Light Phone fans as well dumb phones more broadly. There's also a subreddit for digital minimalism, where people share their experiences of living life without smartphones or how to minimize screen time. Reading through the posts will give you a sense of how deeply some people's dissatisfaction with the connected life runs and how passionate they are about finding technology that works for them, full stop. The market is starting to meet those needs. Will Stults and his girlfriend Daisy Krigbaum opened an online shop just for intentional phones called Dumbwireless in 2022, which stocks Light Phone models as well as a dozen other devices handpicked for their approach to intentional phone usage. It's also a side-gig for Stults and Krigbaum, who both have day jobs but are seeing growing demand for devices like this. But after I told him about my own slow start with the Light Phone 3, Stults reiterated that everyone quits smartphones for different reasons and has different needs. 'We almost want to put up a disclaimer on our site, like, 'The perfect non-smartphone does not exist, by the way,' and that's kind of the point of this,' Stults said. 'You're going to make some sacrifices. It's going to be a challenge.' Consider a weekend phone At a certain point, it feels like we're coming full circle with some of these phones. If you strip away everything you don't like about your smartphone and then start adding it back in spurts, you eventually end up with digital clutter again. But if you're mindful of the clutter and keep tidying up as life goes on, you will enjoy some of the benefits from more dramatic moves, like going full Light Phone. You could even use your dumber device as a weekend phone when there's no particular need to stay so connected. This strategy is essentially what Casey Johnston, who writes a newsletter about health and fitness, described when she 'lobotomized' her smartphone recently. Delete everything and then add back the apps intentionally — in classic Marie Kondo-style. Johnston's tips for streamlining your smartphone are not that different from what I've suggested myself, and I would highly recommend tweaking your settings so that newly installed apps do not appear on your home screen. I also like her advice to use an old phone plugged in at a specific location 'like a landline' for social media, if you must. I'm not going to throw away my iPhone any time soon. As a husband, dad, and journalist, I've come to depend on certain apps and features and immediacy. You might even say living life with just a Light Phone seems like a real luxury. But this notion of being intentional with technology, using the right tool for the right job, and not being afraid of disconnecting — it's a worthwhile aspiration. I do aspire, at the very least, to take the weekend phone approach in the near future. It's also neat that there are now gadgets designed specifically for this, and I have to wonder if bigger tech companies, including Apple, will start taking the intentional phone movement seriously. Light Phone, after all, reminds me of the best of Apple's design ethos: elegant products that solve problems. Only Light Phone is asking a bit more from its users. 'Every decision we made is intentional,' Tang told me. 'We're hoping our customers will do the same.'
