Smartphone Minimalism: the Underappreciated Middle Road

My current Android setup with IodéOS, KISS Launcher, and grayscale mode

The other day, I was watching a Techlore video while folding laundry, and became increasingly annoyed as it went along: not at Techlore or the video, but the Wired article he was responding to.

Peertube link Invidious link 1 Invidious link 2 YouTube link

The crux of the article seemed to be that not having a smartphone was some kind of disability, and that smartphones were somehow these great enablers to make our lives better and more productive, and there was only passing lip service given to the incredibly addictive nature of smartphones and hardly anything was said about the incredible privacy violations done by tech companies, nor how they are now the long digital arms of fascist regimes all round the world, including the big one in North America right now.

I will disclaim that I did not read the actual article. It might have been far better than Techlore gave them credit, but I kind of doubt it.

As a response to the alleged fallacies of the article, and wanting to find a way to become less dependent on my own smartphone, I dove into making changes to hopefully make my smartphone usage less addictive and scroll-happy, since I had been struggling with that a bit myself.

I’ve been running only FOSS Android builds since late 2021 on my phone, and I kicked corporate social media out of my life for good in 2022. I did have a rather languishing facebook account for a while, which I finally extinguished for the last time in 2024. But I haven’t had any corporate social media apps on my phone since at least 2022, if not 2021. I won’t even install apps that contain trackers from facebook or other unscrupulous players.

But even with in those constraints, I was still a pretty heavy smartphone user. I had Tusky, a Fediverse client at my beck and call at all hours, and I used video clients like NewPipe and PipePipe heavily.

So, I went through my app list and started purging. I deleted Tusky and other Fediverse clients, I deleted the YouTube/PeerTube clients, and I deleted several apps that hadn’t used in a while. I also switched my phone to grayscale mode, and increased the text contrast settings a little. I honestly wish that Android had some kind of contrast filter to increase the contrast of text further, even to the point of being monochrome.

The result was actually pretty surprising to me. My phone felt like a different category of device. No longer a pocket tv or social feed device, it became something akin to a postmodern Blackberry: all touch screen, but also all "business." I found myself cleaning up my email accounts during downtime instead of scrolling the Fediverse. I hadn’t done any email on my phone in years! I found myself cleaning up my maze of text messages and archiving stuff I didn’t need to see anymore. I also found that my app list (pictured at top) was only relevant stuff: having fewer apps and no non-essentials meant that the frequently-used-apps list became pretty static and useful, rather than getting clogged with minutiae.

I also found myself listening to music while getting ready in the morning, rather than trying to find some interesting YouTube video to watch to serve as body doubling. So far, it’s been a mood-booster.

I’m hoping I don’t give in to the temptation to turn my phone into a pocket tv and scrolling-obsession device again any time soon. :)