Drop out. Drop in.

This is a small update after selling my smart phone. The finality of selling my smartphone a few days ago is still setting in. I’ve had a smartphone for ten years.

If you missed it, I sold my smartphone a few days ago. The only phone I have now is the dumbphone 2 by dumb.co. It’s still setting in that I won’t have a smartphone again. I’m just not the type of person to make a big purchase on a whim, and I don’t like buying things. Switching back to a smartphone just isn’t something I’d ever have a reason to do, and it’s just so weird having to adjust my mindset to the idea that I don’t have a computer in my pocket always. In the past, I would allow myself to keep my smartphone, but that never really made the switch feel real or final. I always knew there was a backdoor, and I feared I’d go back to it. I also always did.

I go on my computer now just for a few minutes a day. Cold Turkey only allows 1 hour a day of internet use. It’s like being a kid again. If I wanted to change this restriction, I’d have to wait till a specific time during the day to change it. When that time comes around, I’m never thinking about it, and I would only change it if there was something absolutely critical I needed to do which there most likely won’t ever be. Almost everything can wait till tomorrow.

Now, I check my email or RSS feeds for a couple minutes, and close my browser. There’s just not really anything to do on it. It feels good and refreshing to engage with the internet in a normal, non addictive nor manic way. I’ll work on a game I’m writing or something like that, and that’s it. There’s nothing on it that is really screaming at me to scroll forever. YouTube shorts are blocked forever thanks to Cold Turkey. They’ve been blocked for years on my computer, and I’ve never felt the difference. They’re blocked with a password, that I don’t know. In other words, I’d have to completely reset Cold Turkey in order to access YouTube shorts. That will never be worth it. I also deleted my social media accounts years ago, and they don’t let you scroll unless you have an account for the most part. So yeah, I feel like I finally just get to exist. To add onto all of that, my laptop has a busted screen and no battery, so I have converted it into a desktop. Using it someplace other than my desk is basically impossible. It only has 2GB of ram, and can handle pretty much just one task at a time. My large goal with digital minimalism is just to go back to the way the internet and technology used to feel, prior to algorithms and companies stealing our attention. I think I’ve gotten there for the most part with my current setup.

One of the changes, I’ve noticed already and pretty instantly, was the pretty much immediate uptick in my creative impulses. There are so many more small moments in my day, where things are just silent.I’m just listening to my thoughts, and I find myself planning out creative projects or coming up with ideas. I have more thoughts in general because of it! I want to write them down or make things like I used to. It’s only been a couple days, but pretty much everyday, I’ve either read or done something creative like write or draw. I haven’t read or engaged with my creative hobbies in what feels like forever, so that’s really nice. I have been craving some substance like that in my life for a long time. With all of my attention being sucked into endless algorithms, it wasn’t an option before. It finally is though. It feels like I’m coming back to who I used to be before smartphones were so addicting.