Want to cut down on screen time? Buy a shit phone

Three years ago I wrote a blog post entitled “Smart usage: Two productivity application trends to get you thinking”. The post reviewed a few standout apps that help people either cut down on their smartphone usage or incentivise daily tasks through the use of gamification. During the process of writing it I tried my fair share of these kinds of apps, which were called things like “Detox”, “ClearFocus” and “Bashful”. One even allowed users to plant digital trees by staying away from their smart devices.

What I failed to mention in the post was that none of these apps worked, at least for me. Ironically, my screen time went up considerably during the period that I trialled the apps and years later, despite having left my always-on account management role in favour of freelance work and study in the Netherlands, I was reaching for my phone to dispel moments of anxiety and boredom more than ever. But, finally, I found a solution that has helped me take tentative steps on the road to behavioural change. It might not be for everyone, but it might be for you.

Buy a shit phone.

Use it. Hate it. And, gradually, use it less.

I’d been thinking about acquiring such a device for some time: something small, which could just about run to WhatsApp, but couldn’t really hack time-sink apps like Instagram or YouTube. At this point I should distinguish what I would call a “dumb” phone — namely a brick with a numeric keypad — from a truly shit phone. A shit phone tries to be a smartphone, it really does, but doesn’t have the form factor or hardware under the hood to hack it. It promises a slick experience with all of your favourite apps, only to crash when you open too many tabs on Chrome. Unlike the dumb phone, which was only ever supposed to be a dumb phone, the shit phone fails to deliver upon its intended purpose.

My switch to a shit phone was inevitably catalysed by my old smartphone breaking. A slow motion collision with a tiled floor cracked the screen and it was only a matter of time before it was showing more colour bars than SMPTE. It was time. I had a poke around online and settled on the smallest, cheapest and least breakable Android phone I could find. For a mere £99.99 I procured a shit phone of the highest order.

This is the amusingly named CUBOT Kingkong Mini. It boasts 4G connectivity, 3GB of RAM, Face-ID, dodgy battery life, and, most noticeably, a 4 inch display. When you compare this to the screen size of present day flagships, which often exceed 6 inches, it is minute. Although this might not sound so bad, trust me when I say that the experience of using it for prolonged periods of time is actively unpleasant. I can still listen to podcasts, send short messages to friends and make calls, but its size and lacklustre performance make sending emails, reading articles or flicking through tweets downright horrible. This is the beauty and the horror of the shit phone. After a few days of frustration and eye strain, I started to reach for it less and less.

This quickly dispelled all delusions of the phone as a productivity tool. When I used past smartphones for writing or research I would end up flicking onto another app sooner or later; the sickly sweet dopamine hit of the endless scroll through Facebook or Twitter was only ever a few taps away and inevitably I’d get sucked into a spiral of procrastination. Now, I’ve returned to a pen and paper when taking notes and if I need to send emails or want to consume content I do so on my laptop.

I’m wary of preaching about any of this because it would be (A) boring and (B) misleading, as the reality is that my levels of productivity and concentration still leave a lot to be desired. That being said, the efficacy of shit phone ownership as a way to reduce screen time is undeniable. Rather than relying on the carrot of gamified productivity or tree planting apps, I now sadistically welcome the stick-slap of terrible user experience.

When your current smartphone breaks, why not try a shit phone out for size? (Or have your phone repaired, of course.)