Switching to a dumbphone doesn’t mean chucking your iPhone into the Long Island Sound. It means replacing your smartphone’s jobs one at a time (calls, texts, 2FA codes, maps, music, photos, work chat) with simpler tools. You get the mind distractor out of your pocket without completely disconnecting.

Earlier this year I ghosted Spotify for 60 days and lived off a CD tower I’d almost thrown in the trash.

It was a pain in the ass.

It was also the best thing I did all year for my scattered brain.

So the obvious next move is ripping the iPhone out of my hand too, right?

Slow down, cowboy.

You know the drill. You pick up your phone to text the babysitter the garage code. Twelve minutes later you know the score of a Mets game you weren’t watching, the plot of a show you’ll never start and what color a stranger painted their man-shed. (Greige. It’s always greige.)

The babysitter is still standing in the driveway.

So you want the flip phone life. But you also have a job. And a kid. And a bank that texts you a six-digit code.

Same here.

Continue reading “How to Switch to a Dumbphone in 2026 Without Breaking Your Life”