Technology WTF?!?!

I'm getting a new phone and keeping only 11 apps.

Remember that photo of the old lady enjoying a parade or whatever without her phone? 

She is my spirit animal!

Later this week, I'm buying a new iPhone to replace this three year old Pixel.

It’s smashed up pretty good. lol.

It got me thinking about the big promise of technology and how it was supposed to make our lives better and more efficient, saving time, increasing productivity, and bringing us closer together.

Meanwhile, everybody is running around more frazzled and hectic, less healthy than ever, and glued to their phones.

I call bullshit on this whole enterprise.

Phones and a lot of apps are marketed as virtuous in some way but all many of them do is create needs we never had before. Plus, they mess with our brain chemicals around addiction, pleasure, and behavioral reinforcement.

This is intentional, by design, and whack.

I have around 75 apps on that old old phone which feels like at least 60 too many so on the new phone I'm going to start with only the ones that add utility.

I’m shifting the locus of utility back to me and away from tech cos.

Essential Apps

These are the 11 apps I'm keeping:

Phone

Text

Chrome

Google Docs

Gmail

Calendar

Sonos

Spotify or YouTube Music (Big decision)

Clock

Maps

Weather

Camera (Edit: Oops, I left this off the original list. So it’s 12 not 11.)

If I find I have to add more back I will.

Notable Deletions

Done with social apps on the phone. They are smoking and seated desks combined. Getting rid of these apps:

Twitter

Reddit

Discord

I’ll still post to Twitter from my desktop but it will probably limit my use a good bit.

Anyway, Sayonara…

Next, firing messaging apps…

Telegram

Whatsapp

If you need to text me, text me.

¡Adios!

Payment and Banking Apps. I’ll bank and pay for things at home in my office when that’s what I’m doing.

Banking Apps

Venmo

This will also decrease security risks.

So Buh Bye.

Conferencing apps. Really, I need to do video conference calls while I’m on the go? Not anymore.

Zoom

Meet

Duo

Auf Wiedersehen!

Riding Hailing apps.

Uber 

Lyft

If I’m in the city, I'll walk and if I’m at the airport, I’ll jump in a cab.

Fond Adieu.

And Video…

YouTube

That might be the toughest one to do without.

The Phone as Environment

The phone is really a part of our environment. It’s something outside of ourselves that affects our experience of the world. It is one critical factor that often goes overlooked.

Changing our environment influences our experiences.

We’ll see how this goes.