I’m Never Buying a Smartphone Again

A Practical Guide to Dumb Phone Life Featuring Light Phone 3.

Nine months ago, I wrote about switching to a Light Phone 3.

Long story short: I dig this dumb phone life.

THIS SHIT IS MY SHIT.

But!

There are compromises and workarounds, and I’m here to share those with you today.

LIVING IN A TWO-PHONE WORLD

The Light Phone is my main phone.

I use the official Light data plan, which is $45 for unlimited everything.

In my car, I keep my old iPhone mini.

I know. You just closed out this Substack.

DUDE, BOBBY, YOU GOT TWO PHONES?

Listen.

Yes, I could hook up Bluetooth to my Light Phone and play podcasts and music on it. And yeah, I could mount the light phone’s primitive map onto my dash. But, I have a long commute that starts eaaaarly in the morning, and I don’t wanna dick around. I just need my maps and my music quickly.

I already use Spectrum for my home internet, which means a cheapo unlimited data plan for my iPhone is only $30. Plus I get free Dodgers when I buy internet and mobile, which, at that price, is worth it alone.

All told, that’s $75 total, which is less than what I was paying for just an iPhone through Verizon. (I believe that was over $100. Maybe $110?)

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, DUDE?

It means I have a car phone. It’s like I’m living in the 80s.

The car phone stays in the car. Period. End of story.

The only time I ever take that bad boy out is if I absolutely need it. (Some concert venues annoyingly won’t let you inside without an app. The same goes with my gym.)

OKAY, TALK TO ME ABOUT THE LIGHT PHONE NOW, DUDE

Listen. If you like your smartphone, God Bless. This ain’t for you.

However, if you find yourself trying to wean yourself off by deleting apps, changing color settings, etc.

Do yourself a favor. You were meant for this dumb phone life.

ALL OF THE BENEFITS YOU READ ABOUT ARE TRUE:

• No doom scrolling = Less anxiety/depression.

• Eliminating constant distractions = Living more in the moment

• Being bored = healthy for your art. (There were so many moments where I got an idea for the book I’m working on by not having a distraction device on me.)

• As a parent, I’m no longer teaching my kid that my phone is more important than him. And in turn, telling him that a device should not be that important to him either.

• Smug sense of superiority *

LET ME BE CLEAR

Using a dumb phone invites friction into your life.

This is the enemy of all contemporary tech!

But, take my hand…and invite friction.

It’s gonna be fine.

TEXTS

If I get a text from you with a link, guess what? I can’t click on that shit. But I will automatically receive an email with said link.

Can I be honest? I LIKE THAT. Call me a sick fuck! But I like not getting distracted by your link!

Because if I were to click on that link, then whoops, I’m on the fucking internet again, doomscrolling.

Now I just wait till I’m by a computer or a tablet and engage with said link on my own time.

As for the texting experience…it’s fine. It gets the job done. And you can use speech-to-text. Having said that, I’m more apt just to call someone these days.

OKAY. There is one flaw I need to mention, and it’s random. Sometimes in group chats, if someone sends me a link, it just…doesn’t come through. This seems isolated to my friend Marcus. So, maybe Marcus’s iPhone has a vendetta with my ass.

3/18/26 UPDATE: From what I understand, both Apple (iMessage) and Google (RCS) might be responsible for the missing links. Once I figure out how to rectify the issue, I will update this page.

PHOTOS

Jaws Exhibit at the Academy Museum

Naked Lunch typewriter!

The Light Phone camera produces lo-fi, soft images, almost like a disposable point-and-shoot. I dig it! The only bummer comes with sending the photo.

If I forward the photo to my email (easy option on the phone!) or use USB, the picture looks great! Lo-Fi! Nice!

If I text it, it gets compressed to shit.

I believe this has something to do with iMessage’s superior bandwidth vs. regular text. But, anyway, it sucks.

Videos are borderline average…But the only way I can retrieve them is via USB. I can’t email those or text them. Overall, I don’t use it often.

DIRECTORY/MAPS

The Light phone has a lo-fi directory system. Say I’m in a new city, and I want to see where the closest coffee shop is. I just type in coffee, and it gives me a Yelp-style guide with phone number, store hours, etc. From there, I click the little map icon and get turn-by-turn GPS directions.

I’ve used this many times, and it works fine!

The only bummer is that the directory mode doesn’t automatically set to your current location. You have to put in the zip code. I don’t know why this is! The map doesn’t have this defect.

NOTES/ALARMS/ETC

All this works fine.

BONUS: The alarms are very pleasant.

CALENDAR

Personal calendars work fine, and you can set reminder alarms just like any smartphone.

Sadly, shared Google calendars are a no-go….

Light! If you’re reading, we really need the ability to sync shared calendars. My wife and I have a shared calendar, and I can’t view it on my phone. This is a stressor on our marriage, and quite frankly, I really need you, Light.

Fix this!

SPAM CALLS

One thing I took for granted on my iPhone was the ability to send all unknown calls straight to voicemail. The Light phone doesn’t have that, which means my phone is going off way more times a day. I hope there’s a fix for this soon….

3/18/26 UPDATE: Praise be! Today’s update gives us the option to block spam calls!

WHAT ABOUT MOVIE TICKETS?

At first, I would print those suckers out, but then I realized I could just text an image of the ticket from my laptop/iPad/iPhone, then pull it up on my light phone.

Posting this to troll David, a known Magnolia hater.

RIDESHARE?

Guys, maybe I’m just old, but I’m not using rideshare much these days. In those rare instances, I just take my car phone.

SOME OTHER OBSERVATIONS

With a smartphone no longer in my pocket, I can finally identify social media for what it is: a drug.

I enjoy cocktails, sure! But if I drank every night, I would feel like shit. (I know this as fact. RE: Pandemic.) It’s the same thing with social media. Once in a while, maybe I’ll descend into the feed on my iPad, but I view it through the lens of a vice, a thing to do once in a while. In moderation.

An interesting byproduct of this is that when I do engage in the endless scroll, I don’t have the taste for it as much. It’s like going off sugar for a while and then eating a donut. It’s too much, dude!

THE RIZZ OF IT ALL

I think the most surprising part of using my light phone was…the reaction it gets.

Often when I pull it out at movie theaters, folks are like…whoa, WHAT IS THAT?

I’ve never been a fashionable person, but if getting this sort of attention revs your engines, there’s that…

AND LAST

Getting a dumb phone might feel like a drastic move.

It’s all in your head.

It ain’t that serious.

We all have tablets and laptops nearby at a moment’s notice.

Even with my critiques above, I would still take the light phone over anything else these days. I have zero desire for a smartphone to be on me 24-7 anymore.

I’ll say it.

I find smartphones cringe!

Did I go too far??!?!?!?

* Listen, there’s no way to write about ditching a smartphone without coming off a little smug. I understand that. You think I’m not self-aware? Christ, I’m the most self-aware person there is! It’s literally debilitating!!!!