Dumbifying my iPhone (again)
At the beginning of July, I realized that all of my time and mind space was being taken up by IG and YouTube... and my sanity/ability to regulate was highly dependent on the glowing brick in my hand. Some research was done + I went through my "I want a dumbphone" phase again. But decided it wasn't worth the security risk again. So decided to dumbify my smartphone... again!
past attempts
I had actually "dumbified" my iphone before, which involved:
- turning my display settings monochrome.
- clearing my wallpapers so that the screen that I landed on after unlocking my phone was totally blank.
- deleting unused apps.
- most crucially, deactivating my Safari app :O
I'd gotten a lot less militant over the past year, and genuinely enjoyed indulging myself in doomscrolling. But I've really been trying to create more time for myself in the past month. So after doing some research, I decided to re-dumb-ify my iphone.
the 2026 attempt
Things I did this time around:
- Changed my wallpaper to a plain colour (grey).
- Deactivated "Raise To Wake".
- Redid my home bar to only reflect phone, msg and calendar.
- Redid my home page to only reflect clock and one of my tracking apps that I use daily.
- Deleted shopping apps and social media apps.
- Silenced "group chat" notifications - I only receive notifications that for personal messages.
what I found
I would say that I am really surprised at the impact of deactivating raise to wake has had on my phone usage. I didn't realize how easy it was to get "hooked" back into using my phone when i just tapped or picked up my phone. I told my friends about it, and was surprised to learn that Android phones don't wake when picked up...
I also feel that silencing group chat notifications has been instrumental in the quieting of my phone. I didn't realize how much I was relying on such notifications to "entertain" me throughout the day.
Living without an internet app has been a minor inconvenience. But I've been trying to humble myself and practice reliance on friends (asking them if I can order via their phone) if we are eating at a restaurant that requires it. It does take an additional ounce of courage to ask friends/the restaurant to accommodate me. And I also realize that there may come a time when I need to change restaurants - esp for some mid-tier restaurants who have hired wait-staff primarily for the purpose of ferrying food from kitchen to table (and nothing more)... It also scares me that there may come a day when it is impossible to order without a QR reader. But I don't want to worry abt tomorrow today.
I decided NOT to change my display settings to be monochrome, they are still "normal". But I did customize the appearance of apps on the home screen so that they are "tinted". Essentially, they look monochrome on the home page, but are still in colour when I click in. This is useful for me as I need the colour to read some information on some apps - so it's a happy medium.
other weapons against boredom
It has been helpful to me to carry a book around when commuting. But it can't be too heavy or thick (if I'm reading it to pass time). This does require a bigger bag, and I realized that i can only really read on the train (buses give me motion sickness).
I also realize that sometimes I am just itching for some kind of stimulation (I recently learnt the word - "restive"). At times like these, it's been helpful to me to open the RadioApp and just play... something. It usually lands on VPR Classical, but BBC is helpful sometimes when I want some audio input with words. I've not been using my Podcast app as much, which is surprising to me. Perhaps this speaks to my enjoyment of the "unpredictability" of radio.
Last but certainly not the least - I wanted to guard against phone usage via Notes app. So I bought this small notebook with a spiral binding. It's come in soooooo handy. I use it to just write down things to remember (usually I create a daily entry), but I've recently used it to sketch random things while I was waiting (instead of scrolling) or taking sermon notes (a bit small for that but it'll do). I'm getting the Field Notes hype - but I think I'm going to stick with the "top" spiral binding (like a journalist's/legal notepad, rather than at the "side").
as you can see, my iliad readings have not been going well, hahaha
I have some thoughts on how all this has been impacting me, but I wanted to write this post first to give context... Maybe I will write something at the start of August to give me a proper month to try things and reflect :)
If you're in the process of dumbifying your smartphone, let me know if you have any tips/tricks/insights/lessons! You can write me here.
Until next time
N.