gen z using a dumbphone—how and why

I'm just curious does Bill Gates ever call you on the phone and say hey y all what do you think of this maybe it calls I because I don't have a phone so but as far as I know no uh he hasn't called us yet you you don't have a phone uh no no not a smartphone I have a landline but nobody knows the number [Music] so I've been using Dum phones since 2017 with the release of the Nokia 3310 3G back in high school and I kind of want to talk about my experiences using

a dum phone for so long especially being my age and kind of the reasons why and uh how right so I've used a lot of Dum phones I spent a lot of money on dumb phones uh I'm I'm an Enthusiast right I've tested the punk mp02 the lifeone 2 TCL flip to uh media pure which is a piece of trash never buy it please um this Japanese one another Japanese one that you saw in the thumbnail that's blue a few Chinese ones from xiaomi there there are a lot of them out there and chances are

I've tested it um but yeah there there's a a wide variety and the information out there can be kind of confusing CU it's very Regent dependent so depending on where you are your bands for your cellular carrier will be different and as a result different phones from different regions work differently on different bands right maybe a particular phone doesn't work well in Europe but it works here in America and the information is kind of confusing so um yeah welcome to the dumb phone World hi I'm James nice meet you right so am I just being

quirky and is this a cry for help uh why would you want to use a dumb phone in 2022 right uh considering you can just go out and buy a relatively inexpensive smartphone that literally has more computing power than the computers that took us to the Moon all right so there actually a surprising number of reasons someone might want to use a dumb phone in 2022 besides dealing drugs uh I'll talk about my main reasons uh but you know there are plethora reasons why someone else might want too thing that initially drew me into it

was I was uh very addicted to my cell phone and I was also a really poor student um and I didn't necessarily want to be a better student actually but I wanted to be less reliant on my phone I just thought was kind of lame how many people were glued to it all the time so I'm I'm 22 now right why am I still on the dumb phone uh I actually did notice like an increase in my general focus but not because I was on the dumb phone what happened was because I'd also made drastic

reductions in my time on things that got me on my smartphone in the first place I.E social media video games uh online shopping pornography uh just on demand video streaming Netflix the whole works you know because I was on those things less uh I was just using my phone Less in turn right so why am I still on the dumb phone uh it's because I really value being disconnected um um and I I still actually how I do this is I have a smartphone right and a dumb phone with two different numbers and I give

everyone my smartphone's phone number and my dumb phone I don't give that phone number to anyone and if I say want to go run or go work out in complete isolation I just bring my dumb phone with me with zero contact which is kind of annoying for people who want to talk to me cuz I spent a lot of my time disconnected but that's just the way uh I operate I don't have a smartphone like a mobile phone are you trying to keep away from social media um I'm trying to to conserve my time and

attention and it's it can be such a draw such a distraction I don't think I would have the time to write books if I would have a smartphone and the other reason I actually really enjoy meeting people who see me using like a flip phone or whatever and they think it's cool right and I actually really enjoy having conversations with people where it's they're interested in adopting a more int intentional lifestyle or you know they just think that old technology is cool which I also enjoy uh discussing and I am kind of like a douchebag

hipster fle anyways so it kind of works well with my lifestyle so oh [ __ ] right so I should preface this by saying I'm no Lite I actually really enjoy technology uh I'm a computer engineer uh and you can go on like YouTube and there's a video of me reviewing s mod 7 on my Galaxy S Vibrant from over a decade ago uh I really enjoy technology okay however I'm really frustrated with how we're using technology now um it makes me kind of sad right because technology should be improving the lives to people but

the and the way we're using technology now has drastic consequences namely mental health and our our ability to focus is being drastically reduced as a consequence of the way we use technology it's kind of sad I do think that social media YouTube uh reddit online shopping Netflix or whatever all are very useful Services right the issues start to occur when we start to abuse these highly addictive uh Services the the reason that they're so addictive is because uh the companies that run them are highly incentivized to maximize your screen time your attention time so they

use your data right to tailor an experience and they have you know very smart people at these silon valid research Labs determine what attracts us as you know monkeys uh what what attracts me to keep on coming back and clicking for more and yeah we should be really conscious about how we use technology right and uh the FL F I guess is kind of like a physical manifestation of my principles that I generally do uh abide by I have social media I mean I have a Facebook account and a Twitter account and uh so it

is useful I mean to to to get to people I mean you you do need to live in the 21st century um lesson number one yeah lesson number one but uh I I try to I'm very careful about preserving my time and my attention attention is maybe the most important resource at present and uh many devices like smartphones are really designed to grab your attention to take uh to take over your attention so that that can be dangerous sometimes so I've been using this D like I've been using D phones for you know several years

now uh so I'm curious if you have any questions for me just let me know CU I'm probably desensitized to the initial effects of using the Dum phone uh if you have any questions yeah hit me up if you want any like reading recommendations for intentional technology use um I would highly recommend digital minimalism by Cal Newport and still in focus by yoan Hari there a few other books that I would also recommend as well but those are the first two that will get your foot in the door um and if you want to see

more I guess follow me on good reads uh you don't have to follow me but yeah they're more of my good reads I've realized that I kind of forgot to review the actual phone so here's a quick review of the phone whoops