There's something very wrong with modern cell phones. Just inherently, I don't think people were designed to function with a little box at our sides all the time that has the entire pool of human knowledge contained within it and is constantly calling out for our attention. And somehow modern tech has morphed into a doomsday cult that wants to occupy our attention to the maximum possible extent, no matter how bad that might be for us. Our phones are starting to seem like a cancer that just sucks away our time and energy into a digital void, and give us nothing back in return.
I want to throw my phone into the ocean, but that would be kind of checking out of modern life. Anyone who isn't a hermit needs a phone, for something. I thought about getting a dumbphone instead, a phone which does the important stuff like calling/texting, but not really anything else. You can't go on the internet, there's no app store, it has nothing that would demand your attention when you're not trying to use the phone for what it is. It sounds good, but it doesn't have google maps, and for me that's a necessary tool of survival. They do have some fancier dumbphones that can still do maps, but most of them are either overpriced or not quite as functional as they claim to be.
After a long time of looking around, it turns out Japan might already have the answer to this problem in the form of "keitai"
Keitai is just a word for "personal phone", but it means something a little different than what you might imagine based on that. It's not like an iPhone or other smartphone, it's basically a smartphone's software crammed into a flip-phone's hardware. This might seem like it has the same problems. If it can do everything a smartphone can, why is it any better?
The problem, the big problem, with modern cell phones is that they've been optimized to reduce friction. It's so easy to pick them up and slide into video scrolling or social media or browsing the internet, or anything. These things aren't so easy though when you use a keitai; it introduces friction and texture back into the experience. There's no smart-screen keypad that's easy to use, you have to type using the old style of buttons, the ones that have three letters per key and take forever. And you can browse the internet, or use apps, or anything really, but it will be on a small screen that's not really suited to them, so there's a lot less motivation to start doing that, or to keep doing it for very long.
And check out what they look like -
I love these designs. They're minimalistic, but still individual. And you can personalize them with charms or stickers, and give them even more individual meaning and customization. It's kind of the best of both worlds in how it's a technology that you can use as technology, that doesn't pull you away from your life, but instead becomes a part of it. It lets you choose, instead of choosing for you.
In the end I guess all I want is a phone that can fade into the background of life, instead of making demands of you, and I don't think there are any better options out there at the moment.
Sadly, in the US there are only a few keitai that work with the cell network, and even those are not exactly reliable or easy to acquire.
But, maybe someday...