Is this my midlife crisis?

On ditching my smartphone

I recently received some nice Amazon reviews on my debut novel, Situation Nowhere, including “a treasure” and “a beach read for sickos.” Grab your copy in print, e-book, and audiobook at SituationNowhere.com.

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I miss my pre-Internet brain.

Those were the words that called to me at a Douglas Coupland exhibit in Vancouver, Canada, sometime during the Summer of 2014.

The sentiment has stuck with me.

Whenever I'm on vacation, my brain feels different. Free. Relaxed. Eventually, I realized it was because of one reason. I wasn’t glued to my smartphone. I was living in the moment.

I know. Really? Living in the moment?

But it’s true.

I used to Yelp restaurants, desperate to curate the perfect experience. But, often the best meal, the most memorable meal, isn’t something I planned. It’s a restaurant I stumbled into.

This is what I’m chasing right now. Stumbling into things.

Right now, the algorithm is my enemy.

These days, logging into Instagram and seeing ads curated to my “tastes” is a real drag. I’m tired of robots recommending songs to me on Spotify. I'm exhausted by engagement-bait AI slop everywhere I go.

Most of all, I’m done with tech companies harvesting me for my sweet data.

Guys. I'm this close to getting a physical newspaper subscription and only consuming news once a day.

Is this my midlife crisis?

I bought a Light Phone 3 last month. It’s a “high-end” dumb phone with no email, web browser, or social media access. It's been a purchase years in the making. A destination I've been pointing to since I saw that art exhibit in 2014.

Switching to a Light Phone doesn't mean I'm not on social media. I am. It just means I no longer have it on me 24/7. With an iPad mounted in my kitchen and a laptop usually nearby, the "sacrifice" of going to a dumb phone really isn't that dramatic.

The other thing I like about a dumb phone? It forces ideas and questions to marinate. If I don’t know something, I have to fucking sit with it.

Is it crazy to say I’m enjoying this?

Selfishly, I also crave this interior space for writing. I want to go deeper, less knee-jerk. How can I create something great if I’m constantly getting my head snapped back by something buzzing on my phone?

So, yeah, there are psychological, artistic, and even spiritual reasons for ditching a smartphone. But the thing that pushed me off the deep end was the rise of AI. Once it began infiltrating the iPhone, I knew my days were numbered.

Listen. I could live with companies collecting my data to run curated ads. What’s the harm in them listening in on all of my conversations and then feeding me ads based on said conversations? That’s fine, right? Not weird at all!

But companies using my data to flood the internet with AI slop, drain the planet’s resources, kill jobs, and make us all profoundly dumber — that was a bridge too far.

You may be under the impression that you can’t live without a smartphone. Or without AI. Or whatever else tech companies are selling. But I’m here to tell you.

It’s actually really easy to opt out.