Why I don't own a smartphone

Update: As of 2025 I own one. The world has made this type of life much more difficult.

When you tell people that you don’t have a smartphone, you can see the cogs start to turn. Perhaps they think it’s been broken or lost.

The last smartphone broke when it took a swim in a pint glass about six years ago. It was replaced with a spare feature phone from a colleague, which I needed at the time to access services requiring a mobile number. As the period of mourning passed, I grew to love the new little device. I’m going to walk you through the good, the bad, and the ugly of smartphone ownership.

The Good

The Camera

I miss being able to take a picture and have it automatically upload to the cloud and be safely backed up. The quality on modern smartphones is impressive compared to my feature phone’s camera. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen photos from early photography with better quality than what my feature phone can produce.

Looking back at some of the photos I do have, it reminds me just how much photos help you remember what you were doing on a given day.

The Bad

Always contactable

You are always contactable and are never out of reach. I’m not a fan of this feeling, being expected to reply to something at a moment’s notice. I might be hanging out with friends or just don’t feel like responding.

Texts on the feature phone are the only method for communication and I don’t get very many, so they tend to not be a problem.

Missing the moments

We were in a little Spanish speaking village and as we sat down in the restaurant it became apparent that they didn’t know any English. Leading to my friend trying mime for a glass of water – one of the funniest things to happen that holiday (Aqua is now forever burned onto my brain).

A phone can make you self-reliant in ways that don’t always lead to the best results. This is especially true in new places where my previously researched TripAdvisor recommendations are often thrown out. The locals will then tell you about what the best activities actually are.

Sometimes things go wrong with the phoneless approach, don’t get me wrong, but the journey is often as important as the destination.

The Ugly

Your attention is fought for

The things you used to own, now they own you.

– Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Millions of dollars are spent trying to get the attention of your eyeballs on their products. This comes in many forms including adverts, products, or platform where they sell adverts.

These practices remind me of the book Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, where each variable has been carefully tuned to encourage gambling. Even though I don’t gamble, I found myself drawn to the slot machines in Vegas.

Normally, in the technology realm it’s your time, which is even more precious than money as you can’t ever make more. These companies get you to spend hours scrolling through endless feeds, to the point where you get bored but keep scrolling anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to see what old acquaintances are doing. However, such moments don’t happen all the time.

With a smartphone, your time is available most of the time: in bed, on the bus, at the dinner table. Without one, you’re off limits; they can’t buy your attention and you can relax.

Privacy/Security

The smartphone is weak on privacy, allowing companies and governments to collect more data than ever before.

The feature phone is still trackable by governments through cell towers. However, it does limit your exposure to malicious apps and actors, mainly because you have no exposure to them.

Summary

That’s the roundup of what I think are some of the more interesting points on this topic. I don’t think most people will go cold turkey, but you might want to try a period without using your smartphone.