The Romantic Notion of Throwing it All Away

A Dream

For years, I’ve found myself entranced by the siren song of tossing my iPhone 14 into the East River, scavenging a flea-market flip phone for necessary communication, and becoming an entirely self-contained and free version of myself.

In practice, however, the idea of getting rid of my iPhone feels about as self-destructive as cutting off my own limb. The apparent absurdity of this dream reflects a broader truth: so many of us fantasize about throwing our phones away because we feel we no longer have the choice.

At this point, it goes without saying that most of us are addicted to our smartphones. 

I notice my own nauseating iPhone addiction the most in moments of boredom – while waiting for coffee, standing at a busy intersection, or resting between sets at the gym. But much less appropriately, I often feel the urge to check my phone while out to dinner with friends, in the middle of an active conversation, or during class – all moments where my attention should be focused entirely elsewhere.

The cost is inordinately high. At a generous three hours of screen time per day, we lose seven and a half years of the next sixty to our phones. But beyond the numbers, constant internet access slowly and subtly reshapes our attention and our sense of self. Our phones condition us to fill every liminal gap, to avoid boredom at all costs, and to outsource our identities to whatever the internet reflects back at us. 

A Note on Language

The word addiction, however, implies a certain degree of choice and, by extension, personal failure. 

While both can exist on an individual level, I prefer the term dependency, which points instead to infrastructure: a dominant economy built on constant connectivity and smartphone attachment. The flip phone fantasy becomes immediately, annoyingly complicated when we realize how deeply this dependency is embedded in our everyday lives and in every dominant societal system.

This difficulty seems quite paradoxical: as our parents will forever remind us, Gen-Z is the first to grow up with smartphones. We're also, increasingly, the first to want out. For millennia, human beings have existed and connected without smartphones, yet now even the idea of leaving them at home for a day feels viscerally uncomfortable.

As French philosopher Jacques Ellul wrote:

“The machine tends not only to create a new human environment, but also to modify man's very essence. The milieu in which he lives is no longer his. He must adapt himself, as though the world were new, to a universe for which he was not created. [...] He was created with a certain essential unity, and he is fragmented by all the forces of the modern world.”

More than half a century before the invention of the iPhone, Ellul argues that the expansion of smartphone dependency is a self-reinforcing system that makes alternatives increasingly unviable – one in which our economy, socio-cultural fabric, and daily habits depend on constant connectivity. 

Proof of Concept

Despite the supposed impossibility of it all, two close friends of mine (who are the reason I think critically about this subject at all) officially and ceremoniously traded their iPhones for plastic Nokia flip phones.

About a year later, both genuinely hold that the switch has changed their lives (read about my friend Caia’s experience here!). And as a friend, I especially live for the lengthy emails I receive from them in lieu of long texts or voice memos.

Logistically, their lives are more complicated, but thus lies the appeal of the flip phone. Appointments, directions, QR codes, and concert tickets have proved difficult, yet manageable – and that friction demands a type of problem-solving, intention, and interpersonal interaction that we seem to have lost in our smartphone-centered world. However, they decidedly do not recommend the flip phone for international travel or walking home alone after a night out.

On Privilege

About three years ago, The New York Times covered a group of “Luddite” teenagers who meet weekly in Prospect Park for designated phone-free hangouts. Some of the club’s most devout members have made the permanent switch to flip phones, telling reporters they would prefer to own no phone at all.

As I scrolled the comments, which were largely positive, one critique stood out: “Of course they’re able to throw out their phones, they are jobless high school students living in 6 million dollar homes in the safest neighborhood in Brooklyn.”

The question of privilege is unavoidable, and it forms the strongest argument against the viability of smartphone-free lives. 

Although opting out doesn’t entirely remove an individual from our smartphone-dependent economy, it does make them a much worse participant – and that’s not something that everyone can afford. To step outside of the smartphone world is to step outside of the position of the “default user” and to therefore become a more difficult person for others to accommodate, in both minor and high-stakes ways.

Both of my flip-phone-using friends understand that this lifestyle may not last forever. The choice to live without a smartphone is conditional – based on timing, circumstances, and the ability to absorb minor inconveniences without major consequences, and there are moments and scenarios that the flip phone simply cannot handle. 

In many professional contexts, the phone-free lifestyle is simply not viable. Even my part-time, customer-facing job requires no less than three apps to get through a single shift.

Modern corporate environments are relentless and unsympathetic, and they hold even more rigid expectations surrounding truly constant communication outside of traditional phone calls or texting. In many roles, around-the-clock reachability through avenues like Teams or Slack isn’t optional, and an employee who resists these systems is far more likely to be replaced than accommodated.

If the flip phone fantasy can’t save us all, what can?

Our world is designed to move forward in perpetuity. Disconnecting or distancing oneself from the smartphone dependency economy will become increasingly difficult, and the romantic notion of being rescued by a simpler time or different phone will prove increasingly fantastical. 

We know that technological complexity and novelty are designed to entrap us, yet we must participate in order to hold a significant place in mainstream modern society. So like most of our world’s major problems, we can only offer incremental solutions. 

In my own life, I gain consolation from the fact that it’s rarely all-or-nothing. We all have the agency to separate ourselves from the hold our smartphones have on our attentions and identities without performing a total digital exorcism.

Leaving your smartphone at home for a short walk or a dinner with friends won’t shatter the infrastructure of dependability, but it should, at least, offer a refreshing reminder that a world exists beyond the screen. The system won’t notice your absence, and, in a way, that’s exactly the point.