Mar 30, 2025 11 min read Battleaxe

The DIY Dumbphone Method

In Jan 2024, I gave my smartphone a lobotomy. Here's the how and the results.

Ahhhhh. The lobotomized phone screen. Drink it in, it always goes down smooth.

I've touched on how I broke up with my phone and social media in various posts in the last few months. I had a baby and wrote/edited a book in the last year (A Physical Education, coming May 6 to booksellers near you) and could not have done either without doing this first. I figured it would be worth putting the practical parts all into one place in case you, too, have a problem with your phone, and all the things you've seen suggested so far--putting the screen in grayscale; using Screen Time or another an app- or internet-blocking app; getting a dumbphone, etc.--have not worked or are not otherwise feasible.

In my opinion: You don't need a separate, dumber device. It is within your power to make your current smartphone dumb as shit, a real idiot.

Back up your phone. Sync your photos and notes, get whatever data you need off of it. Most apps now preserve your data on their end of things through logins/accounts versus storing on your phone, so this is mostly for preserving local data. If you can think of any apps you use regularly that don't yet have an account through which your data is preserved, make one now. For me, this included VSCO and Seek.
Do a factory reset on your phone. This will delete everything on it, so, be careful before doing this step. But it's key, because you need to nuke all of your apps. It takes way, way too long to delete them all by hand, and you will balk so many times about "do I REALLY need to delete this one?" that you'll give up. That's by design. You need the big bomb.
Identify the default-installed apps you really, actually need to keep. Most people who try to break their habits with a dumbphone/flip phone find that they actually do need their smartphone for two things: Messages (especially group chats) and some kind of Maps app. Keep those, and strongly consider hiding or getting rid of everything else. I kept Maps, Camera, Messages, Phone, Clock, Photos, Weather, and Calculator. I could probably get rid of the last two. I considered getting rid of Safari, and I still probably should. For a long time, I did not install a podcast app.
Set your phone up again, but take pains not to turn on any notifications. Go into your settings and set new app installs to go to "App Library Only," versus the home screen. Make your background something really boring, like the default globe image. No children, no pets, no heartwarming memories. This is your enemy, not your friend; don't let it wear the skins of your loved ones.
Install anything you really, really need that fits your ideal for how you'd use your phone. I installed my notetaking app, Notion; and Kindle, Libby, and Hoopla for reading books. The more honest and ruthless with yourself you are here, the better off you'll be. If you aren't a hundred percent sure an app fits your new dumbphone life, wait and give it some time. For the love of god, no email apps.[^1]
Delete as many default apps as you see fit, and/or put them all into one folder. You want your home screen to end up looking something like the image above.
(optional) If not having social media apps installed on your phone will create too great a temptation to reinstall them, get out an old smartphone with a decommissioned SIM, or buy a cheap one with no service plan. Install all your trigger-finger apps on that phone. You will not be able to meaningfully leave the house with this phone, because it will work only on WiFi. Leave it plugged in in a particular location, kind of like a landline, and only check it when you are in that (ideally uncomfortable) location. If you "Need" to post, you have to send the content to that second phone.
(also optional) In lieu of some of your smartphone's more basic functions--calculator, clock, even camera--consider getting separate dedicated devices. The way that smartphones have inserted themselves into these basic, elemental actions is part of the whole problem. One of the most insidious ways endless idle screen hours stack up is that you go to do something completely innocuous, like check the time, then you see a notification, then you start reflexively tapping around looking for something to do, and then before you know it, 20 or 40 minutes have gone by. What was I doing?--oh yeah, checking the time--and the cycle starts all over again. There are crazy stats about how people pick up their phone a hundred, two hundred times a day; how many of those are we just trying to see what time it is? You can probably cut those pickups in half easily just by getting a damn watch. Weather apps aren't even accurate anymore, due to climate change. A general daily forecast is about as good as anyone can do. Check the weather on your computer, or hell, the local TV station. Etc.

You will, for the most part, be able to see any links your group chats send to Instagram etc. on your phone's browser app (if you keep it installed, but consider not!). For worse apps like TikTok, you will have to use a computer browser, because clicking a TikTok link won't go anywhere except the App Store page to get you to install it. Don't fall for it! Take a breath. You don't have to give your attention to every TikTok link that passes through your gaze.

Eventually, you will probably need to install stupid apps like the ones for airlines, to access your tickets, or banking apps. That's all fine; just let them install direct to the App Library, versus your home screen.

Never, under any circumstances, say yes to notifications--for every essential, useful notification from each app, you will get two to five additional, unwarranted, useless notifications offering you a free 5% off coupon for Arby's if you log in now, or whatever. Notifications are junk, you cannot trust and do not need them.

Give yourself as much time as you need to think about whether you really need to install any non-social media apps that you use a lot. If you aren't sure, don't do it now; just wait. I did end up reinstalling a podcast app, and I have a couple photo-editing apps (VSCO and Snapseed). But installing and logging into any app is a functional barrier you shouldn't let go to waste. Just don't put the app on your phone in the first place, and that will genuinely help.

If you need to remember things and use your phone for that, consider carrying like, one index card or piece of paper and a pen. We love working with our hands. ("Handwriting was associated with 'far more elaborate' brain activity than keyboard writing.") I don't know if you've seen or heard about all the research about screens, but it is not nearly as reassuring.

You might think your phone is faster for all tasks, but opening your phone, opening an app, and thumb-typing is slower than you might realize. Try the pen and paper. You might be surprised how it's equally fast, if not faster. Any time you feel the pull to look something up or do something on your phone? Write it down. You might also be surprised how, when you go to address this little to-do list on a computer, you no longer care about 90% of it. That's strategic screen time reduction math you can take to the bank.

How it's going for me

I used to spend several hours a day on my phone, most of them scrolling social media apps, mostly Twitter and Instagram. I admit it: I enjoyed them circa 2010-16ish. I foolishly tried in the past to play the algorithm roulette, once it came around. I was, for a long time, genuinely afraid to part with social media, because it appeared to be so integral to the industries I participate in, and because I was afraid I'd become uninformed. Very few people would tell you it's a good idea to withdraw from social media if you do what I do, even if they might no longer tell you exactly it's a great idea to join, let alone an obligatory one.

But I had come to hate doing it, mostly because the algorithms require making videos, and video takes an insane amount of time. Success on Instagram or Twitter also used to point outward and become success in other realms. Now, success on Instagram (or TikTok or wherever) means performing a rigid set of dance steps of mugging and pointing and lecturing in order for the algorithm to even glance at you. And then, at best, you make money through Instagram or TikTok, and become more and more chained to their whims for all eternity.

This is to say nothing of what perfect depression/anxiety machines these apps have become. I was on there just sort of looking for stuff to fill my eyeballs and brain and, in reality, being continually disappointed 99% of the time until the rare moment I hit on something decent, which then kept me scrolling for more. If you are only a viewer, all the time you spend on these apps no longer lets you see content you want to see; you spend most of your time basically acting as an unpaid, unwitting cog in the algorithm itself, helping TikTok et al. sort the wheat from the chaff by lingering or liking or commenting or following (this is what is happening when it stops serving you good content and starts serving you random posts with only a couple likes). You're doing work. You’re doing 10 minutes of real work in exchange for, what, one actually good post? One free post on the internet? I hated that, especially. So even though I spend most of my time on topics that are heavily represented on social media (health, fitness, politics, culture), I decided to pull back.

I first lobotomized my phone in January 2024. I went through a short period of picking up my phone to nervously scroll in public places, found no apps, and put it down again. It's now March 2025, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've mindlessly scrolled Instagram in the last year. I don't even use the alternate phone where Instagram lives. I've barely posted in the last year. I'm too scared of TikTok to even install it anywhere. I don't use Twitter anymore, and have deactivated my account. I admittedly post on Bluesky periodically, but scroll it rarely, and even then it's still mercifully possible to scroll to the end of the algorithmless Bluesky feed. I don't have it installed on any phone (I will use it in the browser sometimes).

I don't think this makes me better than someone who spends lots of time on their phone; it's just a way of solving a particular problem I had (inability to exert any amount of control over my phone/social media use, or how it was making me feel). I'm happy to report that I've experienced zero negative consequences from any of this. I feel less insane and talk to friends more, if anything. I still encounter way more information than I can reasonably process. I had to let go of being the first person to know about everything, which is neither a personality nor a redeeming character trait, anyway. You'd be surprised how much news you still learn about even if you are actively not trying to. I'd suggest at least giving it a level chance.

Recently, a college student interviewed me about performance-enhancing drugs, and asked what I thought of "people" using them. I said, do people use them? Look around in real life--do people use them? Or are there, like, a bunch of viral social media posts made by a few hundred or even thousand people out of several billion who use them? These are not the same thing. Social media is not reality. Reality is reality. As Shoshana Zuboff quoted of an anonymous Silicon Valley marketing director in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism:

The internet of things is all push, not pull. Most consumers do not feel a need for these devices. You can say 'exponential' and 'inevitable' as much as you want. The bottom line is that the Valley has decided that this has to be the next big thing so that firms here can grow.

After all this, I even (gasp) leave my phone at home sometimes. I often leave it "docked" in one place in my house because it feels deranged to carry it room to room with me like a lovey. The real platonic ideal here would be no browser, no maps (no location data at all, though it's maybe not escapable due to cell towers). My honest goal would be to no longer carry it regularly at all, unless I'm going on some expedition out of town or something and need it for navigation.

My brain is free. Can't recommend it enough. If you have to fill idle time, carry a book to read or a notebook to write things down. If you don't like those things, I don't know, maybe quitting phone is not for you. But it's worked for me.

Update 4/18/2025: As a couple of readers have pointed out, it's possible to block the App Store in a couple different ways to make it harder or impossible for yourself to redownload apps. In Settings, Screen Time > Content and Privacy Restrictions > flip the switch "on" if it isn't already > App Store, Media, Web, & Games > Apps > Don't Allow. In App Store, Media, Web, & Games, you can also go into the Web Content setting and restrict access to certain websites. In the Screen Time menu, you can then lock the settings with a passcode. If you really want to do it to yourself, let someone else set this passcode, and tell them not to give it to you under any circumstances.

Under Screen Time, "App Limits" also allows you to limit the time spent on any app. You can't set the App Store to zero, but you can set it to one minute. I don't really advise this as a way to manage app use, because I will simply click through any discouraging dialog that says "you were only supposed to use this app for 15 minutes!" or whatever; this scans to me as smoke and mirrors on Apple's part to pretend it's "helping" with this problem (when they likely know it doesn't help at all). If you try it and find yourself constantly bypassing the limit, move quickly to stricter measures. It's not you, it's that those limits don't really work.

Here's another fun thing to try that I just made up: "Payphone Mode." Take your SIM card out so that you can only use services when you are in range of public WiFi, like at a coffee shop.

[F1] Inevitably someone's going to be like "but I NEED my email for work/my children/my organ donation nonprofit": that's fine; this is not for you. But any app that does not survive a check of "does my or anyone else's livelihood REALLY depend on this" should go in the trash and never come out.

How it's going for me

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