Think you can’t live without a smartphone? Why a flip phone might be an upgrade

By Kara Alaimo, CNN

(CNN) — A lot of us dream of not being tethered to our phones all day, interrupted with an endless stream of pings telling us we have more messages and other notifications to deal with.

But you probably think you can’t live without a smartphone. How would you get driving directions, pull up concert tickets or access restaurant menus from QR codes?

Actually, there’s another way to live — and it’s way better, says August Lamm, an upstate New York-based visual artist and activist, for reducing tech use. In her new book, “You Don’t Need a Smartphone: A Practical Guide to Downgrading Your Phone and Upgrading Your Life,” Lamm says the benefits of not having the device vastly outweigh the inconveniences.

Lamm felt addicted and realized she was spending more time on her screen than she was making art, so she got rid of hers in 2022, just after her 27th birthday.

The book is about her personal experience, arguments for why you should do the same and advice for how to make it work.

Plenty of science backs her up. The average 13- to 18-year-old spends more than eight hours per day on screens, according to the Office of the US Surgeon General. And people who spend too much time on screens have lower physical and mental health and well-being.

I spoke to Lamm about how switching to a flip phone without web access changed her life — and what it could do for yours.

This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

CNN: You say not having a smartphone and social media has allowed you to connect more deeply with other people. How?

August Lamm: I was afraid when I got rid of my smartphone that I would lose touch with people I already had in my social circle and I would find it more difficult to meet other people, because I couldn’t access event postings online. When I did get rid of my smartphone, I found that I was actually making more friends, and the friendships that I already had became more solid.

One reason is that you give off more open social energy when you’re not diverting any of it into a device. You’re fully present when you are with people. If you’re not with people, then your natural rhythms of needing alone time and needing social time fall back into place.

If you have a smartphone, it gets mixed up because you’re entering a solitary mindset with other people by looking at your device, and you’re entering a social mindset when you’re in solitude by looking at your device. I found that my energy was more focused and more centered, and I think people responded to that.

Another thing that changed was I was more intentional with my friendships, and it forced my friends to be more intentional about contacting me. They couldn’t post a story on social media about their vacation or relationship status and expect me to have that news. They had to tell me over the phone or in person, not through a group channel, because I also can’t do group messages.

Once people got used to that, it felt like a chance to have a moment to share and respond to a specific life event instead of blasting it out to the world in an impersonal, public way.

I also started meeting a lot more people because when I went out and met someone I liked, instead of saying, “Let’s follow each other on social media,” I would say right then and there, “Let’s plan something for next week,” or “I’m hosting this event,” so it wasn’t something we had to put effort into after we’d parted.

CNN: You point out that people check phones to escape bad feelings. How does it feel not to be able to do that?

Lamm: In the beginning, it feels like you’re trapped in a cage without any useful coping skills. You have to deal with these emotions for the first time in a decade or two. Then, over time, you find analog ways to meet that need. When you’re stressed out, you call a friend, read a book, go for a walk or listen to music. You find a way to fill the void, but in a healthier way.

The other thing that happens is that when feelings come up, it’s less alarming. I’m so comfortable with myself that I’m like, oh, OK, I’m feeling this way. I’m used to it.

CNN: People think smartphones save us time, but you say you have more free time than ever before without one. How did that happen, and how does it affect your life?

Lamm: If we’re scrolling for five hours a day, and I stop scrolling and get five hours a day back, there is absolutely no way that it’s going to take me five hours to call the utility company instead of paying the bill online or go to the post office, or to go to the library and print out a bus ticket. Those are all things that people think are extremely inconvenient. Actually, they only take a little more time, and they also have added benefits of socializing and getting outside and exercising when you walk to those places.

You don’t look back at your day and say, “I wasted it online,” but it’s all these micro-checks. It’s these little moments of answering a text, then quickly checking the news headlines. If you’re doing that 50 times a day, that adds up to a few hours of screen time. If you remove that possibility, you get all this time back.

It has completely changed my life, because even in the busiest periods, when I have so much work and there’s a lot of pressure on me, I still have hours of free time every day. I never feel that level of terror and panic that I felt when the devices were with me.

We all have this idea that we’re very busy, and I just want to challenge that.

CNN: You write that we learn helplessness when we rely on smartphones for things like directions. Do you think your brain is sharper now that you’ve gotten rid of yours?

Lamm: You get your skills back automatically. You don’t have to retrain yourself. Naturally, we absorb information and have great recall. I’m saying this even about people who insist they have poor memory, can’t focus and are bad with directions.

Everyone has that ability to remember things, because it’s a survival skill. We evolved to have that. We didn’t have a place to put all our knowledge before, and we evolved without even pen and paper, so we do have brains that are capable of remembering things and orienting ourselves.

Getting rid of my smartphone and being left to my own devices, no pun intended, I have been amazed at my own mental capacity. Everyone I’ve spoken to who gets rid of their smartphone has this experience.

CNN: You say you’re more present now in your surroundings. What does that feel like, and how does it affect your well-being?

Lamm: The way I can best describe it is by describing how it felt to not be present when I had my phone. I would be talking to someone and thinking about when I could next check my phone. I felt this agitation that I feel now when my neighbor knocks on my door and I go out and talk to him, but I know I have something cooking on the stove. It’s like, “Really great to see you, but I have to go back inside and check on this.” That’s how it felt all the time — like there was something else cooking in the background, and this was not my whole life.

Any fragmentation of your attention takes you out of the present. Presence is being OK with the moment you’re in. It’s not comparing it to other moments, not wanting to fill it with something or change it, not feeling antsy and not feeling like you’re wasting time.

CNN: What’s your advice to people who think they can’t live without a smartphone?

Lamm: You should try living without a smartphone. Give it a month and see how you feel at the end of it, before deciding what you can or can’t do. Because you haven’t tried yet, and you never know.

If you use an app for blood sugar monitoring but still want to reduce screen time, I suggest buying a dumb phone to use as your primary phone and treating the smartphone purely as a medical device.

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