What I learned when I swapped my smartphone for a flip phone

Do you ever yearn for a less digital life?

For me, the quest for a less digital life started almost two years ago. The passing of both my parents over the previous four years brought home to me that you can’t press pause and go back and replay the moment you’re living in.
It’s happening here, now, and in the real, analog world. If you miss it, it’s gone.
Maybe that moment is a smile from a grandchild, or the deer that hopped across the trail you were hiking on (and that you missed while you were busy posting a picture of the view on social media).

Then I read a piece in the New York Times about what technology reporter Kashmir Hill called “Flip Phone February”. Her idea was to use the whole month of February to take a break from using her smartphone and use a flip phone instead. She talked about reading the “screen time report” on her Apple iPhone and realizing to her horror that she regularly spent more than five hours a day on it.

And she bemoaned all the other things that she could have been doing with at least part of that time. Reading this, I looked at the “Digital Wellbeing” report on my own Android phone and saw that it wasn’t very different.

That realization led me to commit to taking a digital timeout.

My flip phone

My journey involved swapping my Samsung S22 Ultra for a very basic AT&T Cingular Flex 2 flip phone. Being basic these days still means support for 5G, the ability to be used as a WiFi hotspot, a small but serviceable color screen – and basic apps for email, web browsing, and music. Not surprisingly, the best thing about it was the ability to make and receive phone calls. Great voice quality.

Probably the biggest thing for me was the holiday it provided from social media. No longer would I sit and stare at the screen of my phone, get mindlessly sucked down all kinds of digital rabbit holes on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.

I would have to be more intentional about my social media.

And for that, it worked. I had time to read books, go for a walk, phone a friend – or just do one of the countless things you might enjoy when you’re not giving hours and hours of your attention to social media.

Be where you are

Once I set the smartphone aside, the first thing I noticed was just how many things I relied on the smartphone for – including things like paying for parking, for reading QR codes at restaurants, and for doing early check-in on flights. There were many more, but each of them generally came with an analog alternative that provided more human interaction (‘could I please get a paper menu?’, or ‘could you help me check-in for my flight?’). And I knew that I was, in some way, making things a little less convenient for myself to engage more with the world around me.

Without the constant companionship of the smartphone screen, I noticed my surroundings a whole lot more, started looking around at what other people were doing, and generally felt more “in the moment”. I kept reminding myself “be where you are” as I worked to adjust to my more analog daily life.

A new strategy for a more balanced life

Recent news reports suggest that I’m not alone in my quest. A growing number of people seem to be making an active choice to try a new strategy for a more balanced life.
An October 2025 report in The Guardian, for example, described an initiative in the central Japan town of Toyoake. It limits smartphone use among its 69,000 residents to two hours a day. Reported benefits include many of the same things I saw in my own smartphone experiment (getting time back to do other things, feeling less distracted, and feeling more connected to what is going on around you).

Meanwhile, Washington Post reporter Brittany Shammas recently did her own smartphone liberation experiment by joining the “Month Offline” initiative which encourages participant to “ditch the Doomscroll” and trying using “a dumbphone for 30 days and join a cohort of offline adventurers across the country for weekly creative challenges and digital accountability”.

In addition, Kashmir Hill, the New York Times reporter who got me started on this whole thing, did a follow-up to her own original story that offered further tips on how to effectively take a break from your smartphone. She also outlined stories of other individuals and companies that had taken this approach, and the benefits it provided (including more focus and more time).

A better balance

My experiment lasted six months and is now over, but I’m continuing to look for ways to find a better balance between the time I spend in the real world and the screen world. I’m keenly aware that we live in an “attention economy” and I am more mindful about how I spend my currency in this attention economy. I’ll keep you posted about where that mindfulness takes me next!