My Struggle with Digital Services
I’ve been struggling with various forms of digital services addiction for years now. The earliest I can think of was when a first generation iPad first came to our house and I couldn’t get enough of stampylonghead Minecraft Xbox videos. That addiction morphed into wanting to learn as much as I could when I started using Google and Wikipedia. (Yes you can get addicted to Google.)
I was fortunate to live in a household which was generally critical of social media specifically which meant I was largely spared from growing up using that black mirror. However, during the pandemic I started using Instagram more seriously for the first time and goodness me was that designed to be a rabbit hole of attention. This was also around the time I was starting to become aware of how my addiction was becoming a real issue. I tried to use the tools that my phone included to combat the issue. I put my phone into do not disturb mode for 5-6 years straight now. There are almost no notifications that I didn’t explicitly and intentionally allow. But I still kept getting sucked in. I tried reducing my use of my phone by adding screen time controls. This worked more or less for a while until I accidentally found a bypass and it no longer had the same effect.
It eventually got so bad that during my first year of college there were days where I would be anxiously checking my email once every 45 minutes just because I had the impulse to do something with my phone.
One thing that has stood in stark conflict between myself and my relation to technology was my gap year where I started to care a lot more about older technology. I started to develop a sort of nostalgia (that’s the best word I can think of for it). It was mainly for technology that was before my time, or rather before I started caring about technology.
As a gadget head I had been following all sorts of different technology trends. The removal of the headphone jack, the rise of bone conduction headphones, smartwatches (pebble ftw!). One that stood out to me was the slow but gradual trend of focused devices. Devices that have the audacity to say NO.
“You’d think focusing is about saying yes. No! Focusing is about saying no.”
— Steve Jobs WWDC'97
One could argue that this focused devices movement started at Amazon, with the Kindle. Then moved on to note taking with the reMarkable & Supernote tablets, and most recently cameras with people rediscovering the character of DSLRs, film cameras and early digital cameras. As someone who spends too much time on YouTube, I heard about the Light Phone I & II, likely through an Unbox Therapy video. My thoughts at the time were that it was a neat little gadget, but severely lacking compared to my android phone. I was under the impression that the phone is a tool that should have as much capability as possible, a jack of all trades. I also didn’t think there could be a problem. Little did I know that I forgot about the rest of that famous line, jack of all trades master of none.
Back at my first year of college I switched from taking notes on my computer to using a reMarkable 2 tablet. This, believe it or not, was mainly a cost decision. I wanted to save money on printing pages. What happened was that I learned the value of focused single purpose devices. These single purpose devices do one (or a few) things, but do them well and, dare I say, to perfection.
Ever since I’ve been working on integrating more focused devices in my life. I started carrying a notepad in my pocket to avoid looking at my phone when I had an idea or needed to write something down (I know, not modern tech but it works). I modded an iPod between my first and second years of college to get rid of my phone when listening to music.
Switching to a Light Phone was clearly the next step in my progression away from the buzz of digital life.
During my time waiting I wanted to start preparing myself by trying to use my existing phone more mindfully. This… was largely unsuccessful. I still had hours of screen on time with YouTube, my original sin. At one point I was curious about the total time I had spent on YouTube and did some napkin math and had projected that about quarter of my waking hours had been wasted on YouTube. This really scared me. (Aside, why can’t I uninstall YouTube on an android phone? Why is this app important to the operating system?)
When I first heard about the Light Phone III, on a Vergecast podcast episode in by yard, it was abundantly clear that this is the phone for me. After waffling for about an hour about the price I put in my pre-order and got an order number in the lower LP-19xxx range meaning that I would be in the first batches of phones.
The Light Phone
After patiently waiting about 10 months after initially placing my order, my Light Phone III arrived! It was a super amazing unboxing experience! The Toyo Steel tin that the phone came in was a super interesting touch that really hit home that this was meant to be a tool. My first impression was that this device is a tool. It feels like it is built like one as well. (My notes from a week in say that I was just incredibly impressed with the build of the device.) Having that connection severed from my smartphone and leaving it on wifi, in a drawer seemed to do the trick. (Curse you duo for making me keep my old phone around!)
One thing that took me a while to get used to was getting used to my phone making noises again. Back when I was using a smartphone, it was almost exclusively in do not disturb. From what I can recall I left it in do not disturb for over 4 years. In order to know when something important came in I wore a pebble which acted like a ‘pager’ of sorts which would buzz at me when something like a message came in.
Because I got the light phone while I was still living on campus, I was really frustrated with the lack of enterprise wifi capability. This meant that I needed to stand up my own network to be able to download podcasts without using cellular networks.
After the novelty of the device wore off it kinda just became a phone. Not to say there weren’t bugs that got squashed or quirks of behavior, but overall it does what it needs to do very well. An interesting side effect of the keyboard is that I really don’t like sending text messages. Instead, whenever possible I will call someone than text them. This could be seen as a failure of the phone, but I rather believe that it is a subtle encouragement to use a better form of communication. If on the off chance someone isn’t okay with getting a phone call (what is the point of having a phone then?) then I can voice type using the surprisingly good speech to text function.
I really love this little phone’s interface. Once you learn how to operate the phone tasks become simple, mundane almost, which is what I want out of a tool. This isn’t to say that there aren’t interactions that leave me delighted that it worked that way. The simple text based, black and white interfaces makes it so simple my youngest sibling has no issues figuring out how to send texts or make calls.
The camera on this phone is really nice! This was one of the shortcomings of the previous light phone that kept me from getting one. I am someone who uses a camera as a tool to document random things. Having a quick way to reference a recipe’s ingredient list at the store it paramount, and this phone does that job perfectly. I also like to take photos of the beautiful world we live in and this camera also does its job at being ’the best camera is the one you have on you.’ It’s no DSLR, but its respectable enough.
The unfortunate reality is that currently the photos, when sent over text, look straight out of an early 2000s film, pixelated and barely int eligible. From what I’ve been able to gather from the light phone discord is that this has to do with the light phone trying to send the most compatible/deliverable image possible for the destination network. This tends to overly compress the image and ruin any detail that the photos might have had. I once tried to get my plants diagnosed via text, it didn’t go to plan. We thought the plants had completely different issues than they actually had. (My plants are doing great now, thanks for asking.) Luckily I believe Light is working on fixing this issue so I won’t have to deal with that for too much longer.
One of the sneaky best features of the phone is the fact that there is a physical button dedicated to the flashlight. I, like many people, need to use a flashlight and never needing to futz around with a control center or on screen menu to get the flashlight working is amazing. I simply take the phone out of my pocket and press with my index finger (or thumb) on the brightness wheel and I have light!
The voice chosen for the device is also really soothing and gives really great navigation. I was using the device with my dad to navigate around town and we were both pleasantly surprised by the quality of navigation. So much so that we tried to replicate it on his pixel phone because of how much more ‘human’ and ’trusting’ the navigation was (i.e. it trusts that you can remember a few instructions ahead and that you are competent).
Impacts
I can now confidently say that I am now no longer addicted to needing to know something in the moment. I have reached a sort of zen when it comes to that. If something is important enough I will remember it and look it up later or I will write it down and look it up later. That was something that I really appreciate, being comfortable with not knowing instantly. It forces me to be intentional about exchanging numbers with more people, something that becoming replaced with exchanging Instagram handles. I no longer pull my phone out to stare at random things. I only use my phone when I hear it ring or when I intend to do something.
I have also noticed that the kind of world we really live in. In the past 10 years or so we have completely reshaped the world around a few assumptions, instant responsiveness, and internet access. Living with a dumb phone in 2025 can and will actively make you miss out on opportunities. When I go to the grocery store I am missing out on deals because the coupons are only redeemable by an app. I need to ask separately for a menu at restaurants because they decided to not print them anymore. I can’t easily register for career fairs because I can’t scan a QR code.
I really love this tool. I’ve even been on a podcast saying as much. Vergecast Hotline I think the pre-order price of the phone was a perfect deal for me and was 100% worth it. However, I personally would not have bought the phone for its full price as it would have been way too steep for my broke college bank account. What it has done is inspire others to try to live their lives a little more light.