I love this! I highly recommend leaving your phone in the car when you take your kids to the park or go grocery shopping. It is an easy small step but strangely liberating,.
(Though as someone was spent a few years carrying a Sony A-6000 way too many places, I'm never going back to that!)
Where I live we're supposed to separate our recycling and it only gets picked up once a fortnight and it is amazing how much of a damper that puts on "ordering online for me". (I don't entire understand how we're filling the recycling bin completely every two weeks without even ordering stuff online but that's another discussion.)
Just the other day I was thinking about buying a fancy pizza oven on Amazon but then thought about the cardboard boxes it would come in and what a hassle it would to be to deal with them and then started looking up where I can buy it in person instead.
Quasi-related: my 4 year discovered today that you can "say hello" to random strangers and they will basically always say hello back. (At least if you are 4 years old, results may vary if you're older.) She even said, "Daddy, why are people so nice?" We stood outside an ice cream shop for 10 minutes this afternoon because, "I want to hello more people!"
I love a lot of this but this new habit your 4 year old has developed takes the cake for me. I hope she keeps on “hello”-ing people as she gets older! :)
- No music/podcasts when I go out to exercise. Just take in the scenery and let my mind wander.
- For online articles I want to read (like this one), I've experimented with printing them out and sending them to my e-ink reader. I've settled on printing out the long ones and sending the shorter ones to my reader to save on ink and paper.
- Gradually shifting from Gmail to a modestly priced service outside of the surveillance capitalism model, downloading my 20 years of history and then deleting it entirely from the platform.
I’m using Private Email with Namecheap and it’s satisfactory. It’s like $60 USD a year for the domain (my last name .ca) and four email addresses at that domain, with IMAP access plus basic webmail and like 6 GB email storage.
It is one of the few things I haven’t found a satisfactory Canadian alternative to, as I try in 2025 to disconnect / completely boycott all American products until the country stops threatening us.
One of the things I have committed to this year is printing out tried and true recipes I have always used online and compiling them into a notebook. Each recipe is in a protective clear sleeve. I ditched my smart phone over 2 years ago and have never looked back. One thing I didn't anticipate was the amount of adults that are unable (unwilling?) to change the way they operate with a smart phone. The last one that blew my mind--a 70 year old woman that was insistent on giving me GPS coordinates to her nearby house instead of simple directions. I could not convince her that my phone does not work that way. I asked several times for directions and realized she was not able to do that. I had to find her house on my own. What a mind trap those phones create in people! Having been without mine for so long now, I look back and am so grateful I got out of that when I could because it appears that over time the brain adjusts and becomes quite dependent on the phone (scary)
I went to a conference last fall by public transportation without a smartphone and other attendees were blown away and thought I must be some kind of savant! Lol.
Nicely said 🥰 I think the same about the many "crutches" humans utilize. I always felt this way about eye glasses, the more a person wears them the more dependent the eyes become on the glasses and the eyes weaken completely. You've got a nugget of wisdom here, appreciate the share ❤️🌷🤸
Hi Katherine. I love your work and often offer a link in my substack.
Most consumers don't realize how much weight and resulting fuel requirement was added when airlines started offering connectivity, but Frontier Airlines did not do it and passed the savings along to its customers.
In addition, the FCC safety tests its wireless devices on an inanimate plastic model based on the measurements of a male military recruit's head filled with the equivalent of Jello.
The parents substituting a dumb phone for a smart phone can help support the demand for better testing by signing the action item at the Alliance for Natural Health right now.
The FCC Proceeding Seeking Comments from the Public - 2 ways to contribute. The Alliance for Natural Health has a very quick sign-on action that only requires your name and email. Just go here: https://anh-usa.org/action-center/ and look for the action item for the FCC.
OR Go to the FCC site and submit a comment. Go to: ECFS - Search Filings to the FCC. Click on the button “Submit a Filing” in the very top toolbar. Type in 25-133 for the proceeding.
Here is the order that you are responding to:
Comments Due: Friday, April 11, 2025 Reply Comments Due: Monday, April 28, 2025
History will judge the substitution of a dumb phone for a smart phone as the equivalent of smoking a light cigarette...because social media access is only one of the issues. We need to do more to address cradle to grave RF/EMF exposures and chronic illnesses. And thanks for all you do.
Using a digital camera (with just a memory card) no wireless or cloud connectivity, is not only liberating, but way easier! Just take the memory card out, insert into the computer, and bam! All your pictures are there.
Many more lessons I've learned by ditching the smart life, and embracing the wise one:
My primary phone since 2016 has been a flip phone - I finally found a durable model that has lasted a few years - and I love it. That being said, when my husband got a new smartphone last year, I kept his old one to use with wifi at home and about. I've had to start leaving it at home again because I was getting way too reliant on it. I work outside all day at a farm and found myself tucking the smartphone in the pocket of my overalls way too frequently and using it throughout the day (company wifi). I'm now encouraging myself to just read books on my breaks and lunch break again. Or talk to my coworkers. It helps! Frankly I love staring into space at work while most of my coworkers under the age of 30 have their Airpods in. I would find that to be mega distracting but many of them show up to work on day 1 with them in. To each their own I suppose.
I love all of these suggestions! Another idea is to listen to public radio for news instead of going on news sites. I like hearing actual voices and there are no persuasive design elements or potentially upsetting images. For long car trips with kids, if not going screen-free altogether, get a portable DVD player with DVDs. I also try to keep a deck of cards and pack of conversation cards in my purse - I take them out when the kids and I have to wait somewhere, such as the doctor's office or at a restaurant when there's a long wait for the food.
I am an adult and just bought a DVD player and am now rabidly picking out DVDs at the library. You would not believe the selection in circulation, it kind of blows my mind. And for more obscure stuff I can mostly request them via inter library loan. I really really love not seeing ads again.
This is a great list, although I am already doing most of this. I believe that the long term solution to digital involution is intentional reorganization of society on a small scale.
This is great! I love all your suggestions. I would also add that if you have young children keep a small bag of books, paper and crayons and board games in your car trunk at the ready for times when you need to wait. It's great to have while waiting for an appointment or anything.
I love this! I highly recommend leaving your phone in the car when you take your kids to the park or go grocery shopping. It is an easy small step but strangely liberating,.
(Though as someone was spent a few years carrying a Sony A-6000 way too many places, I'm never going back to that!)
Where I live we're supposed to separate our recycling and it only gets picked up once a fortnight and it is amazing how much of a damper that puts on "ordering online for me". (I don't entire understand how we're filling the recycling bin completely every two weeks without even ordering stuff online but that's another discussion.)
Just the other day I was thinking about buying a fancy pizza oven on Amazon but then thought about the cardboard boxes it would come in and what a hassle it would to be to deal with them and then started looking up where I can buy it in person instead.
Quasi-related: my 4 year discovered today that you can "say hello" to random strangers and they will basically always say hello back. (At least if you are 4 years old, results may vary if you're older.) She even said, "Daddy, why are people so nice?" We stood outside an ice cream shop for 10 minutes this afternoon because, "I want to hello more people!"
I love a lot of this but this new habit your 4 year old has developed takes the cake for me. I hope she keeps on “hello”-ing people as she gets older! :)
A few recent ones of mine:
- No music/podcasts when I go out to exercise. Just take in the scenery and let my mind wander.
- For online articles I want to read (like this one), I've experimented with printing them out and sending them to my e-ink reader. I've settled on printing out the long ones and sending the shorter ones to my reader to save on ink and paper.
- Gradually shifting from Gmail to a modestly priced service outside of the surveillance capitalism model, downloading my 20 years of history and then deleting it entirely from the platform.
What other email service do you recommend?
I’m using Private Email with Namecheap and it’s satisfactory. It’s like $60 USD a year for the domain (my last name .ca) and four email addresses at that domain, with IMAP access plus basic webmail and like 6 GB email storage.
It is one of the few things I haven’t found a satisfactory Canadian alternative to, as I try in 2025 to disconnect / completely boycott all American products until the country stops threatening us.
One of the things I have committed to this year is printing out tried and true recipes I have always used online and compiling them into a notebook. Each recipe is in a protective clear sleeve. I ditched my smart phone over 2 years ago and have never looked back. One thing I didn't anticipate was the amount of adults that are unable (unwilling?) to change the way they operate with a smart phone. The last one that blew my mind--a 70 year old woman that was insistent on giving me GPS coordinates to her nearby house instead of simple directions. I could not convince her that my phone does not work that way. I asked several times for directions and realized she was not able to do that. I had to find her house on my own. What a mind trap those phones create in people! Having been without mine for so long now, I look back and am so grateful I got out of that when I could because it appears that over time the brain adjusts and becomes quite dependent on the phone (scary)
I went to a conference last fall by public transportation without a smartphone and other attendees were blown away and thought I must be some kind of savant! Lol.
Nicely said 🥰 I think the same about the many "crutches" humans utilize. I always felt this way about eye glasses, the more a person wears them the more dependent the eyes become on the glasses and the eyes weaken completely. You've got a nugget of wisdom here, appreciate the share ❤️🌷🤸
Hi Katherine. I love your work and often offer a link in my substack.
Most consumers don't realize how much weight and resulting fuel requirement was added when airlines started offering connectivity, but Frontier Airlines did not do it and passed the savings along to its customers.
In addition, the FCC safety tests its wireless devices on an inanimate plastic model based on the measurements of a male military recruit's head filled with the equivalent of Jello.
The parents substituting a dumb phone for a smart phone can help support the demand for better testing by signing the action item at the Alliance for Natural Health right now.
The FCC Proceeding Seeking Comments from the Public - 2 ways to contribute. The Alliance for Natural Health has a very quick sign-on action that only requires your name and email. Just go here: https://anh-usa.org/action-center/ and look for the action item for the FCC.
OR Go to the FCC site and submit a comment. Go to: ECFS - Search Filings to the FCC. Click on the button “Submit a Filing” in the very top toolbar. Type in 25-133 for the proceeding.
Here is the order that you are responding to:
Comments Due: Friday, April 11, 2025 Reply Comments Due: Monday, April 28, 2025
History will judge the substitution of a dumb phone for a smart phone as the equivalent of smoking a light cigarette...because social media access is only one of the issues. We need to do more to address cradle to grave RF/EMF exposures and chronic illnesses. And thanks for all you do.
Using a digital camera (with just a memory card) no wireless or cloud connectivity, is not only liberating, but way easier! Just take the memory card out, insert into the computer, and bam! All your pictures are there.
Many more lessons I've learned by ditching the smart life, and embracing the wise one:
https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/phonefree
My primary phone since 2016 has been a flip phone - I finally found a durable model that has lasted a few years - and I love it. That being said, when my husband got a new smartphone last year, I kept his old one to use with wifi at home and about. I've had to start leaving it at home again because I was getting way too reliant on it. I work outside all day at a farm and found myself tucking the smartphone in the pocket of my overalls way too frequently and using it throughout the day (company wifi). I'm now encouraging myself to just read books on my breaks and lunch break again. Or talk to my coworkers. It helps! Frankly I love staring into space at work while most of my coworkers under the age of 30 have their Airpods in. I would find that to be mega distracting but many of them show up to work on day 1 with them in. To each their own I suppose.
I love all of these suggestions! Another idea is to listen to public radio for news instead of going on news sites. I like hearing actual voices and there are no persuasive design elements or potentially upsetting images. For long car trips with kids, if not going screen-free altogether, get a portable DVD player with DVDs. I also try to keep a deck of cards and pack of conversation cards in my purse - I take them out when the kids and I have to wait somewhere, such as the doctor's office or at a restaurant when there's a long wait for the food.
I am an adult and just bought a DVD player and am now rabidly picking out DVDs at the library. You would not believe the selection in circulation, it kind of blows my mind. And for more obscure stuff I can mostly request them via inter library loan. I really really love not seeing ads again.
Brilliant
This is a great list, although I am already doing most of this. I believe that the long term solution to digital involution is intentional reorganization of society on a small scale.
https://swiftenterprises.substack.com/p/computational-independence
Read more here.
This was great🩷☺️
This is great! I love all your suggestions. I would also add that if you have young children keep a small bag of books, paper and crayons and board games in your car trunk at the ready for times when you need to wait. It's great to have while waiting for an appointment or anything.