As I get more into the analogue life with my field journal, I’m beginning to understand the appeal of moving away from a pure digital lifestyle. I like the balance that doing some things outside of the computer/smartphone brings my life. I want to add more of that.

But some people take this too far. Now, people can do what they want to do, just as I can judge them for it. My judgment really means nothing, so it should be easy for all of us to just move on. Some people are reverting to dumb phones. I get the idea here: less distraction from Android and iOS, and your life is better. Seems like a good idea, right?

Well, maybe. For some people it might work well. If they do it right. When I envision this process, I think about actually removing the things that a smartphone does from my life. Making my life simpler and easier. But some people really just replace the smartphone with more complexity.

That video there is one example. Now most of my judgment here comes from the thumbnail, but the creator talks about all of the things he needed to add to his life to replace his smartphone. For him, this seems to work, but to me it seems to defeat the purpose. You have one thing to carry but decide it’s too distracting, so you replace it with four, five, or six things you need to keep track of? It makes no sense.

This guy’s life may work, but it isn’t less complex.

Again, my judgment of this one random YouTuber means nothing. But it got me thinking about this trend people have of moving away from a smartphone back to a “dumb phone”. It feels a lot like the tiny house fad that went around a few years ago. People, who had all of this stuff, would move into a broom closet sized house and think they were being economical (nevermind that these small houses often cost just as much as a regular sized house). I’m sure for some, this lifestyle worked well, but many people discovered that it is hard to live in such a small space when you have a spouse, maybe a kid or two, probably a dog, and tons of stuff.

Going to a dumb phone feels a lot like this. For some, it will work just fine. It will be a revelation. But for most people, they’ll eventually go back to using an iPhone or an Android. They’ll learn how to make the smartphone life more minimal without going to the extreme. Maybe the experience will foster growth, but they will return. For one, most will be like the guy above and will just add things to their life that weren’t there before: an mp3 player, a journal, an e-reader, or whatever—additional things that need to be kept track of. Another thing, there are just things in this world that you need a smartphone to do. Things like ordering groceries or refilling prescriptions, checking in to the airport or paying for parking. Yeah, there are manual ways of doing those things still, but they’re being phased out quickly.

It is sad that a smartphone has become so essential. They’re expensive, complicated, and provide a plethora of privacy concerns. They exclude a large portion of the world’s population simply because they’re too expensive. But it’s the truth that we live with, going without a smartphone (for most people) creates more problems than it solves.

The question I ask myself is, could I do it? I think the answer is no. I’d be like the guy in the video above. I’d need an mp3 player, an e-reader, a camera, a journal and several pens and of course, a dumb phone. That is too many things for me to manage. Instead, I’ve been trying to use will power to just use my phone less. Am I good at doing that? No, but I’m trying. And it feels less masochistic than trying to go back to 2006.