Switching to a Flip Phone for 4 Days Taught Me These Surprising Lessons

Last month, I traded my iPhone for this flip phone. When I realized my screen time was over 5 hours a day, me and a co-worker decided to test out what it would be like to use a flip phone for 4 days. I get hundreds of notifications per day, and I'm not the only one curious if there are other solutions. More Gen Z and millennial users are looking for other ways to get off their smartphones. According to a recent study, blocking smartphone internet access for just 2 weeks improved well-being, attention span, and focus for 91% of participants. In fact, there are over 100,000 weekly visitors to Reddit's dumb phone forum. And while some users are setting time limits on their apps or turning off their notifications, others are switching to

dumb phones altogether. And this phone has no internet access. To prep for my smartphone detox, I wrote down appointments on my physical calendar, jotted a couple reminders on sticky notes, and texted my family and friends my temporary number. Here are three things I learned using a flip phone for 4 days. The first, I actually felt less obligated to text back my family and friends quickly. That's for a couple reasons. I couldn't open links on my phone, I couldn't zoom in on any pictures they sent me. It was also just a lot more complicated to text them back. I had to hit one button sometimes four times just to get a single letter out.

Little too much work for me. Second, this little thing is a great conversation starter. When I was sitting at bars, people asked me what it was. When I was in line for the bathroom, people stopped and asked me where they could get one of their own. When I was picking up the phone from the cell phone carrier, the salesperson told me more and more young people are actually coming into the store and asking where they can get one for themselves. And finally, being off my smartphone actually made me think about my appearance less. By the end of the experiment, I realized that while on most weekends I'm looking to see what my favorite influencers are wearing, I'm checking different apps to see what's on

sale, I actually didn't have thoughts about my appearance at all. My co-worker and I agreed it's probably not super realistic to switch to dumb phones long-term, but we both enjoyed the experiment. It's something we'd try again. At the end of my digital vacation, I actually did feel refreshed. And the second I turned my smartphone on, I turned off notifications on several apps. I don't really need a reminder to be distracted no matter what kind of phone I'm using.