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I got a flip phone
Moving to spacehey, installing Linux on my laptop, creating my own website, and now, I got a mive style folder 1.
This lil guy:
My journey of digital detox started when I heard the term "digital garden". The act of creating a corner of the internet that is yours, that looks how you want it, and holds everything you love and are interested in. That search of course led me into a rabbit hole. First, about dumb phones. The idea seemed quite nice for me at the time. A phone that simply does the bare essentials and makes it hard to doom scroll, thus preventing your brain from easily seek instant serotonin and decrease your attention span as well as making you more forgetful (here's an article on that). Now, I'm not a young gen-z. I'm 25 years old, so I was there when facebook became popular (made my first account circa 2011), was on kik when it was just a messaging app like whatsapp, was on hi5, and had dumb phones. My first one was a nokia from 2009, then there was a turquoise blackberry, you know, the ones with the computer keys that are so small u can't help but make a grammar mistake every word you type? Then smartphones came, and the internet progressed at incredible speed, so it became more centralized and monopolized by corporatism and capitalist morph-ism.
Twitter was bought by a lunatic billionaire and is a cesspool of incels and ragebaiters trying to make a few bucks off of negative content. Bluesky looks exactly like twitter. Whatsapp and instagram were bought off by facebook which is constantly having data breaches. Websites all look the same. There's no hint of artistry, creative process, a STYLE. So eventually, I stumbled upon neocities.
Please don't look at my website it's being re-done at the moment, but neocities offered me what so many others couldn't: complete control. A blank sheet of paper and a pencil. So off I was to W3Schools and MDN to learn how to center an image and why my text was resizing every time the browser did. It wasn't easy and at times overwhelming and maddening, but it helped me so much with understanding this side of the internet that nowadays is completely hidden from the public eye, meanwhile it was completely accessible for users in the beginning era of the internet.
This journey allowed me to understand more about windows and how badly it got over time. I still remember Windows vista and 7, msn messenger, the games, how fun it was to customize. Now it seems everything breaks if you're not a complete slave to microsoft. The edge browser is shoved down our throats like a cry for help from the owners, xbox????? and don't get me started on the microsoft store...
Debloating my windows 11 (which I was basically forced to update to) with tools on the internet (I used wintune) made my user experience so much more pleasant and fast.
Then, of course, came the need for a phone. As with all smartphones nowadays, my smartphone's battery became completely addicted to charging after 2 years, the wifi connection no longer works, its buggy, and slow. It has way too many apps, most of which I don't even use, and all the social media that entices me to feed the algorithm by scrolling forever and ever. But I didn't want to downgrade to a completely dumb phone.
Then, of course, came the need for a phone. As with all smartphones nowadays, my smartphone's battery became completely addicted to charging after 2 years, the wifi connection no longer works, its buggy, and slow. It has way too many apps, most of which I don't even use, and all the social media that entices me to feed the algorithm by scrolling forever and ever. But I didn't want to downgrade to a completely dumb phone.
The reality, unfortunately, is that nowadays it is virtually impossible to live comfortably without a smart phone. Banking apps, authenticators, whatsapp and zoom and slack for the workplace, among others made it evident for me that I needed at least a phone where the space wasn't stupid big NOR stupid small. A phone with a somewhat recent os so that I could have the apps that I need work without a problem (bank apps, social security apps, stuff you can only get either through an apk or play store). I needed a phone that allowed me all of that whilst also making it hard and unappealing to doom scroll.
So the mive style folder it was. It's android 12 GO (lite version), with touch screen if needed and google play store. It's a korean phone so data connectivity and calls was a worry but I use lebara and so far no problem. It's a bigger flip phone (thank god I have yaoi hands so the keypads are perfectly spaced) but the screen is still the size of a smartphone from like 2012, its small and uninviting to stare at for long periods of time. I only have the essentials there for everyday wage slave life and general adult business (finances, gov stuff) and even though its used it is in perfect condition (i got it from y2kphones btw goated service).
It's not the best or easiest camera, it's not in any way good for gaming (not that im interested I hate mobile gaming) and its doing what it does best: prevent me from constantly opening it so that i click on the same old apps whenever I feel the boredom creeping in.
I think in many ways, we have become so used to having a super computer right on our pockets and everything available to us, that we forgot that it's ok to be bored. Because boredom ignites the creative side, the one that wants to create, experiment, search, learn.
The next step will be to end my spotify subscription. I want to download all the songs I want like I used to back in the day, and just use youtube whenever I wanna hear something new. I want to buy a digital camera as well as I like to take pictures when I go on walks or bike rides. I want to write more, and finish my website and be constantly on it adding things and curating it and tweaking it to my liking. I want to delete my social media accounts and be completely free and bored and connected with what's around me. But for now, I'm just downgrading.
Thanks for reading!!
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Lev
omg I’m thinking of getting the mive style folder aswell! does it rlly stop u from doomscrolling cuz, its a pretty big investment to make (100+ dollars) ??
Also does it run discord/spotify?
windows seven is pretty cool
I'd say you will have to go 50/50 here:
On one side its a flip phone that is not optimized for much of what smartphones can easily do today, so it definitely helps to discourage bad habits as its not as easy and practical \o/
On the other it has a somewhat recent os, has play store and is touch screen, so you also have to make the decision to not install the apps that feed the addiction.
It's kind of a 2 way effort basically.
Also yes, you can easily have discord and whatsapp here, tho discord is not really easy to navigate on it you can send messages, the notifications for it don't really work tho (albeit I haven't checked if u can tweak that in the settings).
Whatsapp works perfectly fine!
by Eggeye; ; Report
also for spotify i have no checked yet, but it should if it runs the other two!
by Eggeye; ; Report
thank u so much! really thinking about getting it now :D thx 4 the detailed response
by Lev; ; Report