iPhone dumbphone

Agreed. Many years ago I set up a personal email address for that very reason, i.e. one through which I only expect personal 1-to-1 correspondence, and which I only hand out to family & friends, never to companies (which easily get hacked and/or one day decide to reuse your email address for their newsletter).

Gmail has ben doing this for years, automatically. And it works very well. I think a lot of people don't know the feature exists, though

> It just wouldn't work for me. I need Jira, Slack, and GitHub during work hours for example. But I don't want them during non-work hours.

Not an iPhone, but my solution to this is LineageOS + microG, where I just disable push notifications when I'm not working, or enable them for just the few select apps if I am expecting some messages there. The price for this is that I don't always receive the social app message when it is sent, but that's fine by me.

Assistive Access could go way beyond its current use. Focus Modes help a little, but they don’t fully solve the problem of wanting certain apps during work hours and blocking them completely afterward. A stricter, system-level option would be huge.

People already turn to tools like Freedom https://freedom.to/ or custom iOS Shortcuts to enforce downtime, but those feel more like hacks than solutions. If Apple extended Assistive Access with scheduling or rules, it could really support intentional app use.

Google’s Digital Wellbeing https://wellbeing.google/ is proof there’s real demand for this. Apple could make Assistive Access a broader digital balance feature, not just an accessibility setting.

> I need Jira, Slack, and GitHub during work hours for example.

So do I, but I certainly don't need them on my phone. For the longest time the only work app I had on my phone was some 2FA thing. Then asked them to either buy me a phone or a yubikey. I got a yubikey (and my phone complete free from anything work related).

As of iOS 18 you can add any app you want into assistive access now! It has been going pretty well with Beeper on my end.

I like Assistive Access, but my biggest issue is that you have to click like 100 times to read any notification. No option to just be able to read a text from the home screen. I found it was even more friction (for my use) to unlock my phone constantly than the regular format.

I tried Assistive Access and I don’t think I even made it a day.

Most of these attempts to simplify things are putting idealism at odds with reality.

Huge, thanks, somehow missed it. Smart TV UIs are begging for this mode too, for users to whom aesthetic is irrelevant.

> people with cognitive disabilities

Does… does my phone addiction and inability for self-control qualify as this?

>I don't understand why people leave email notifications enabled. There is almost no email I get that needs instant action.

People are different and have different use cases and needs.

i don't have them enabled; but, the email address I use for my Android phone and tables is used only for those devices.I've neer used my primary email address on a mobile device. Email can wait until I'm at a computer.

Pro-tip: On iPhone, iPad, and macOS, you can shut off email notifications for everything except VIPs.

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/08/28/add-senders-vip-mai...

People live different lives

> There is almost no email I get that needs instant action.

Different people get different e-mails.

Also, some people just don't check e-mail otherwise. Why would they? Notifications tell them the 5 times a day they get a new e-mail, so they don't need to manually check their e-mail 2-3 times a day. It actually makes a lot of sense. Notifications mean you never have to check your e-mail.

> I don't understand why people leave email notifications enabled.

For me email on the phone uses less than 1% of my screen time during the day.

Email and chat apps are just about the only notifications I keep. I "archive" any unwanted email right from the notification screen, I report as spam anything I don't like. I hate people who have 4 digits in their email bubbles.

I really wish Apple/Google would do something about notifications, use AI for something useful.

"Hey you haven't read any of your 3454 emails, should I disable notifications for Gmail?"

"Hey you're drowning in notifications with your son texting you 2 hours ago, 4 pages down. Should I prioritize him maybe?"

If I don't get a notification for something, there's a good chance I'll forget to check emails/texts/etc for weeks at a time.

You can probably just use the UPS/FedEx/Amazon apps to get those notifications instead anyway.

I find that regular wilderness backpacking trips in places without cell service accomplish this kind of reset in a fun, social (bring friends!) way that provides plenty of exercise and fresh air, with the added bonus of being a reasonably "normal" explanation/antidote to the social pressure of those "you're doing what??? I need to be able to reach you!"-type conversations.

There's the added bonus that being fully out of cell service effectively removes the ability to cheat altogether, though it seems inevitable at this point that satellite data will be invading the backcountry before long.

I switched to a candy-bar style dumb phone for a month and did something similar. My list was pretty much the same as the one in the article with a few small changes.

The most jarring was probably maps - other things like email, messaging etc could be delayed until I could reach a computer but not knowing how to get somewhere right now was problematic and required planning in advance.

I usually kept my smart phone in my car and did a sim swap on the occasion that I really needed it.

I'm curious, have you tried this? Would love to learn what you jotted down.

I just have all notifications turned off permanently.

"But what about..?"

Yes, even that.

There’s an even more straightforward exercise.

Step 1: delete your social media

There is no step 2.

Way too much friction. I don't have the luxury of going "off the map" for a week.

Wow I'm the creator of Foqos, thanks for the shoutout <3

Author here: It's powered by Instant, the company I helped found.

The counter is pretty easy to set up.

Here's how it works on the blog:

1. You set up a schema:

https://github.com/stopachka/stopaio/blob/main/src/instant.s...

2. And then use `presence` to write an ActiveCounter:

https://github.com/stopachka/stopaio/blob/main/src/app/Activ...

TBH, it's kind of hard to square "I locked down my phone to have less distractions in my life" with "I put a counter on my page that changes 10 times a second while you're trying to read"

Having an accountabilibuddy definitely helps establish and maintain compliance.

I don't think self control works that way. Every decision you make causes decision fatigue, which means that the things that you encounter constantly that nag at you and take your attention have a serious impact on your day-to-day. Like, say you have the energy to make 1000 decisions throughout the day. That includes dressing well, remembering to do things, eating well, making time for side projects, etc. Say your phone provides 100 times when you have to say 'no, I'm going to make the more difficult decision and not give in to this' each day. Well, that adds up.

I have type 1 diabetes, and there's studies about this on diabetics actually. There's a huge hit to quality of life and specific kinds of burnout attributed to the thousand or so extra decisions we have to make every day to manage our blood sugar. I'd love to get rid of those, but since I can't, I'm particularly sensitive to bullshit that takes my attention or willpower like that. In my experience, people don't live on a spectrum where "I have self control" = Everything that happens to me I make the right decision even if its hard or "I have no self control" = I always make the bad decision. There's always a pool of decisions, and the further you get into the onslaught of decisions the more you're beaten down and the worse your self-control is.

It is perhaps possible to attain a monk-like state where your will is absolute and you never make any compromises (although I doubt it), but since 99.99% of us will never get there, I think there's a lot to be said for cutting out things that nudge us in the wrong direction constantly

In an ideal world, sure, but there can be times where it's better to just lock yourself out.

Maybe breaking out of your phone is just more self-control than you currently possess. Imagine trying to get in shape but you're only allowed to lift 200+ pound weights - you simply aren't strong enough to even make progress, you need an easier task.

Or maybe you just have other priorities in the short-term. I'd love to get to the point where I can easily ignore my phone, but right now my priority is to finish unpacking after a move and getting back into the rhythm of going to the gym. As James Clear says in Atomic Habits: To break out of a bad habit, make it invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying. Locking a phone down to barebones functionality does all three.

Finally, maybe you have a deficit of attention. I've had diagnosed ADHD since I was a child - my level of self control for addicting systems is significantly diminished compared to a "normal" person. Yes, a certain level of this learned behavior: With dedicated effort and practice, I can develop that skill and get better about distractions. However, my baseline is still lower and my progress will be slower than a neurotypical person. Crutches like this help me preserve mental energy for my day-to-day tasks instead of spending a significant portion of my mental energy fighting the urge to check my phone all day every day.

Just my perspective at least. I know everyone is different and I aspire to be the kind of person that doesn't need to employ blockers and safeguards just to ensure I don't end up getting sucked into doomscrolling for 2 hours, but right now I'm working with what I've got.

It’s about setting up systems that help you succeed even if you are not perfect. It’s about facing the fact that you don’t always have enough self control, and minimizing self destruction when that happens.

I guess it’s like when recovering alcoholics, though ideally should just “simply” have self control, in reality it’s about removing booze from your apartment, getting rid of triggers, changing habits, friends, etc.

But this is an act of self-control, op is the 'self' setting up the system. The primary target is not compulsive instinct, but time on the phone, but the beauty is that this in turn, will remove the compulsive instinct, because it's brittle. It's like their analogy to eating healthy in the post.

I think it can be starting point for some, then slowly reintroducing the distractions when they build up those muscles.

Feigning victimhood and zero agency is very trendy in certain circles, and you evidently get bonus points for these sorts of performantive theatrics, versus actually adressing the core of the issue.

It's not the phone, it's you...

I do this too, and have them set the recover apple id to their own. Been averaging ~1.2 hours per day screentime the last few months (mostly messaging apps).

Basically in "downtime" mode all the time with a few "Always allowed" app. One thing is, you're phone (and it's browser) is pretty damn useless. Overtime you realize that a lot of things you need to lookup don't need to be looked up, etc but it can be frustrating at first.

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> Your browsing can begin at certain pre-defined entrypoints, like a news aggregator or a QR code

I would definitely use this.