My name is Jennimai and I am addicted to the iPhone.
As a Gen Z, I hardly remember the time before the advent of smartphones. My first phone was a purple monster with a sliding screen. In 2013, I traded it for my first iPhone, and I have never looked back since.
I do everything on my phone: text, FaceTime, scrolling unconsciously for hours. I can hardly imagine not touching my phone a day, and I am not interested in the revival of nostalgic technology that other people of my generation are so obsessed with. So, imagine how I feel when I turn off my beloved iPhone for a week.
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Yes, dear reader, I tried not to use my iPhone for seven days. In its place, I used Light Phone II, which was launched through Kickstarter in 2018 after successfully running the original Light Phone in 2015. This is its process.
Light Phone II is neither a smart phone nor an old-fashioned flip phone, so using it means that I have lost the convenience and the feeling of being a cool girl. On the contrary, it is an extremely basic mobile phone, mainly used to send and receive text messages and calls. Because I have the II version, I can also download podcasts and music, but it is not easy to play them-I will explain in detail later.
You can get a mobile phone and charging cable for only $299. Light Phone promises to help you get rid of the world of social media obsession and over-connection, while still providing the most important phone features. To use it, you must provide your own compatible SIM card or sign up for a separate phone service through Light Phone, which costs $30/month or $70/month, depending on the amount of data. I choose to use my existing SIM card, which also ensures that I cannot really cheat and use my iPhone within a week.
In terms of functions, Light Phone II does not have much on purpose. It is about 3.8 inches x 2.2 inches, which is small enough to feel small in my already small hands. It has a headphone jack, a micro USB charging port, volume buttons and a main menu button. Everything is centered on the E-Ink screen, the same as the dimmable, paper-like screen on the Kindle. It does not emit any blue light, so it is very suitable for the eyes.
In short, Light Phone II is the most boring phone. Its purpose is to keep you out of touch with the modern world as much as possible. I think this goal is both admirable and disgusting.
I agree to accept this story because I really feel I need it. In the past few months, I have been thinking about my social media and phone usage and realized that I spend too much time on both. I don't have exact numbers because I refused to open my screen time report-mainly because I was afraid of strong evidence that I spent more than 12 hours on my phone every day.
Although I don't have numbers, I do have a real picture of my addiction. Before Light Phone appeared, I fell asleep scrolling through TikTok every night. I don't mean to read the application carefully before going to bed for too long; every night, I scroll the screen until my eyes are closed due to fatigue, and then I still hold my iPhone and slowly leave. When working at home, I often pick up my phone for no reason, choose a social media app to scroll unconsciously, and then look up, and an entire hour has passed. I often feel the buzzing sound, thinking that I have received a text message or notification, but I have not received anything. Every time this happens, I feel strangely disappointed and sad.
I just want to say, I think my iPhone controls me more than I control. I thought about deleting apps, but I always think of an excuse to keep them. According to a study by researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of Texas, even just using a smartphone can reduce your concentration and ability to perform tasks. A part of your brain is busy not using the phone, and the closer the phone is, the more distracted you will be. The more you rely on your smartphone, the less cognitive and fluid intelligence you can use when your iPhone is nearby—this study calls it "brain drain caused by smartphones."
In essence, even if I deleted some apps, my emotional investment in the iPhone prevented my true freedom and focus. I had to get rid of it completely.
Two days before using Light Phone, I felt that I was finally going to escape. This is the biggest advantage of Light Phone: it is completely incapable of hosting external applications. It cannot connect to Apple's App Store or Google Play, and any software updates are done annoyingly on the desktop website.
Cutting off access to my favorite apps is the only way I can give them up. Two days before I used Light Phone, I finished a book in less than 24 hours, something I haven't done since middle school. Reading before going to bed, chatting with her boyfriend, then turned over and closed his eyes and fell asleep. I hardly even checked Light Phone’s notifications because the text display is so plain—no emoji, no message response, and nothing keeps me engaged.
The first two days are happy. Then things became annoying.
In the following week, I realized that no one else is living the life of Light Phone. I mean, I obviously know this, but disconnecting from the digital world while everyone else is very engaged can create a lot of problems.
First, you must turn off iMessage on iPhone so that all texts are redirected to Light Phone as SMS. So, I became a terrible green bubble. Whenever I send text messages, group chats or individual chats, someone will comment. This is a very small question-admittedly, very unique to Gen Z-but I am really embarrassed to text my iMessage friends, which is almost everyone I usually talk to. The shame was so deep that I basically stopped texting for the rest of the week.
This is partly green bubble paranoia, but also partly due to physical troubles. As I mentioned, the Light Phone itself is very small and has a smaller screen. To be honest, texting on it is a nightmare for my fingers, and I think it's very dexterous. Each letter also takes about one second to register before it appears on the screen, so the quick pop-up "Hey, what's the matter?" takes 10 times as long as the iPhone. Trying to enter text rant? It is absolutely impossible. I ended up just avoiding other people or calling when absolutely necessary.
Of course, in a sense, this is positive. I am not just texting for texting, as I always do. But it made me miss a lot of fun little moments with my friends. My best friend attended the wedding that weekend, and I couldn't play any drama one by one through words. Light Phone also doesn’t send or receive pictures (it doesn’t even have a camera), so I can’t view the baby pictures of my nephew that my sister often sends me. It feels good not to be tied to the phone, but it doesn't feel good to be excluded from small and happy moments.
Within a week, I also went to my friend's apartment for the first time because she moved there. I don't know how to get to the new address, so I try to use the route function of Light Phone. Unfortunately, it is not pre-installed. Users must download routes, music, and podcast tools to their phones through the Light Phone dashboard on their computers. That part is not too difficult. But let the tools really work? A nightmare.
Light Phone should be able to access my unlimited data call plan through my SIM card, but I found that when I turned off WiFi, the route tool never loaded.
I assume that the loading problem is related to how the Light Phone can access the combined Sprint/T-Mobile data plan I own, because Light Phone is compatible with T-Mobile but not compatible with Sprint. When I asked Light Phone about loading issues and my theory, co-founder Joe Hollier said that "lack of data seems to be the most reasonable reason", but he could not provide a definite answer. He did recommend using his personal T-Mobile dedicated SIM card to solve data problems. When the route tool does load, it will show walking, driving, and public transportation options.
To use podcasts and music, users must download apps and the individual songs and episodes they want to listen to. Light Phone only has 8 GB of storage space, so you have to be a bit picky.
Likewise, even if I perform the necessary steps, I cannot load media when I am not connected to WiFi. I would love to tell you how the audio quality is, but I have never heard of it. When I asked Light Phone about this question, Hollier told me, “There is no good explanation because this is not a problem we have seen with other users. The podcast you are trying to listen to may not be supported anymore (our The tool is drawn from a selection of free Apple Podcast RSS libraries), sometimes this may happen to a show exclusively to Spotify or other paid platforms, but ideally, if it is no longer supported, it won’t be an option." Please note that I am trying to access the Betches podcast, which can be found on Apple Podcasts.
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The other major problem I encountered while using Light Phone was mainly due to the nature of my work. You see, to say the least, it is very difficult to find a job in the field of digital media while actively disconnecting from all media. I also make Mashable's Snapchat and TikTok content, which is completely done on my iPhone. In order to complete my work and keep these platforms running, I can't actually put my iPhone away. Yes, I cheated during the week I didn’t have an iPhone, but it’s necessary to get paid, okay?
There are other minor annoyances this week: I can’t set the alarm on my Light Phone to snooze. Sometimes my text messages just can't be sent out. I can't take any pictures of a good date with my boyfriend in Central Park. The vibration setting is too quiet and the ringtone is too loud. When going out in a restaurant, I cannot scan the QR code menu. When I was late, I couldn't call my hair salon in advance because I didn't save its number. I can’t log in to Slack from the mobile app when I’m still in bed (sorry, boss!).
For some of these things, I used my iPhone to cheat, and I ended up taking it with me for a rainy day. Don't get me wrong, if it is not necessary, I just suck it up and figure it out, or give up. Just like when I went to the hair salon, I just gave an extra tip because they were waiting for me. But I need something like a map tool, so I will use WiFi to intercept my Apple Maps application at home, and then study it on my unserviced iPhone.
Eventually having to carry multiple devices with me becomes more stressful because I constantly check my pockets to make sure I haven't lost them. For a less anxious person, this may not be a problem, but alas, I have been under great pressure. Is this the opposite of the feeling that Light Phone should give me?
After using Light Phone for a whole week, I am eager to return to my iPhone. I really liked using Light Phone the first two days, but a week of modern expectations of friends, family, and work reminded me that disconnecting from the world is indeed a privilege. To be honest, I don’t.
I admit that some of my complaints are very Gen Z-such as my shame of green bubbles and lack of direction. But the reality is that everyone in my life wants me to be plugged in. If I want to continue to be an efficient employee, a daughter and sister who keep in touch halfway, and a friend, I can’t get rid of it. Usually only one text is required.
The perfect use case for Light Phone is to unplug it intentionally and briefly. Maybe I will switch to it to relax on the weekend after a particularly stressful week. Or in a dream vacation, where I want to fully integrate into the surrounding environment and be out of reach.
But let's be honest: if I had a choice, I would still choose my iPhone, 10 out of 10 times. Would it be better for me to choose Light Phone from time to time? Maybe, but some habits are hard to get rid of.
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