# [Update] Without a phone for 10 days

[I wrote a post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qfgLFpnTzSfspBtwa/without-a-phone-for-10-days) about going without a phone for 10 days. Ten days have now passed, and I'm evaluating my options. This post is about my experience being phoneless and my thoughts about having a phone moving forward.

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The last ten days have been extraordinarily peaceful! After a break-in phase of frequently checking my pant pocket for a phantom phone, I began to feel more at ease. After about three days, I felt a calmness that I hadn't enjoyed since middle school. After a week, I became more aware of the passage of time -- my days felt closer to a single drawn-out experience, as opposed to a cluttered collection of moments. During errands, I was forced to spend time waiting for as long as 30 minutes. Being without a phone, I spent these periods thinking to myself. There was immense value in maintaining my attention during these moments; I would compare them to a weak form of mindfulness meditation, something once part of my daily routine.

During these past ten days I've also seen greater productivity, which I attribute to an overall decrease in desire for stimulation. I finally got a simple academic [personal website](https://benjaminaspiegel.com/) up and running. On the whole, I feel more capable of directing my attention.

Granted, there were some inconveniences to not having a phone. Most inconvenient was being unable to authenticate my university login. I still cannot authenticate, and in order to generate backup codes I need to get in touch with my school's IT department. I was also inaccessible to close friends whom I wanted to speak to, could not order food for delivery (though now I realize I can order it from my computer), and could not easily use car service. I was, however, able to chat with friends using iMessage on my laptop.

Having spent the past ten days without a phone -- and being disappointed by the recent launch of the Google Pixel 6 (a contributing factor to this phoneless experiment) -- I would like to continue life without a phone. I'm willing to give up Uber, Uber Eats, Google Maps, Google Pay, Slack, GMail, and Snapchat. Happy to, actually. However, I need to be able to make calls and texts. Also, having used iMessage for the first time, I was very impressed by how conversational it feels and how convenient it is to chat from my laptop. If I want to get texts on a feature phone, I will have to choose SMS over iMessage. I briefly considered getting an [iPhone 12 mini](https://www.apple.com/iphone-12/key-features/) for this reason (I also absolutely love the form factor and design), but I'm worried about getting robocalls. This was not as much a problem on my Pixel 4, which offered excellent spam-call blocking and [on-hold waiting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZm-LY6QAE) (this is perhaps the most practical feature of Google's Pixel Launcher; I almost never needed to listen to god-awful muzak while waiting for a representative).

I'm torn, guys. Should I get a feature phone? An iPhone 12 mini? Should I flash the Pixel Launcher onto a different Android phone (or embark on a painstaking search for the beautiful-but-discontinued Pixel 5) to spare myself from robocalls? What are your thoughts?

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**Edit:** I've decided to try out a feature phone for the indefinite future. I'm now rocking the [Nokia 6300 4G in cyan](https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_us/nokia-6300-4g?sku=16LIOE11A01).