A couple years since returning to a flip phone.

It was about 15 years ago that I got my first cell phone, the Samsung Intensity II. It was a time of change, like realizing you need deodorant. That one hit hard, but after a trip to Knoebels Grove that same day, I never skipped a day of using it again. The phone was another shift I wasn’t ready for. I was perfectly happy with our landline, calling friends to talk about the latest Nintendo Channel updates on the Wii or what we did in Pokémon that day. But my father decided it was time. I remember standing in a tiny Verizon store, walking circles by a glass counter full of phones with a shabby CRT television flickering near the front door. I protested a little bit, but ultimately walked out with a phone in my pocket.

At first, I barely used it. I had no real desire to text or call anyone because I'd just see them at school. But I gave in, setting a custom ringtone because that was the thing back then, and suddenly, the world felt smaller. I texted my 6th-grade crush, a random friend from Steam (no clue why I gave them my number), and even messed around with text signatures, even though I thought they were cheesy. Still, the phone mostly sat unused until I lost it one day in high school.

Then came my first smartphone. Unlike before, I fought hard against getting one. I already knew they were a problem—expensive, addicting, and intrusive. But my mother insisted, saying a flip phone was boring because "you can't do anything on it". And just as I feared, I got sucked into the cycle. I knew smartphones were designed to hook you, but I kept finding excuses to stay: Spotify, Discord, an alarm clock, staying in touch. Each excuse felt flimsy, but I couldn’t break free. I knew they were engineered to be indispensable in your own life but also dispensable as a physical item, yet I couldn’t put mine down.

Years passed like that. I lost phones, broke them, replaced them, and repeated the cycle. I remember shattering a smartphone less than a week after getting it and feeling nothing but apathy. When I finally sold my last one, it was for $25 at a Walmart kiosk, just enough to buy some chicken nuggets and fries. It was when I hit a real low—years of spiraling into depression, struggling with addiction, and feeling completely lost—that I finally stopped to reflect on what actually made me happy. I started college, got a job, practiced zazen, and focused on rebuilding myself. And when I was ready, I walked into Walmart, bought the cheapest flip phone they had, sold that smartphone, and never looked back. That was two years ago, and I couldn’t be happier.

Now, I appreciate life more: leaving home with just my wallet sometimes, cherishing real conversations, and not worrying about breaking an expensive device. It’s not about being a hipster or feeling superior, or nostalgia and fear of times changing. It’s about rejecting the illusion that smartphones are essential. We had alternatives for everything—CDs, MP3 players, physical media, dedicated gaming devices. Smartphones consolidated it all but at a cost, turning us into content machines for corporations.

Just take a look around next time you’re in public. How many people are glued to their screens or walking around gripping a phone like their life depends on being reachable at that exact moment? It’s unsettling. Companies make it hard to escape, but sometimes the harder choice is the better one. One day, I hope to ditch mobile phones entirely for a landline. But for now, my flip phone does exactly what a phone should: call and text direct phone numbers. That’s all phones ever needed to do.