The first time I used the Light Phone 2’s GPS, I was driving to Los Angeles on a date. I ended up parking in a red zone and hyperventilating to the rhythm of my hazard lights. All I was doing was getting lost, and yet I was seconds away from puking myself. (Thank goodness I didn’t.) I should have chosen a lower stakes event to test the navigation feature, but I assumed it would work just as well as Google Maps. I was wrong.
The Light Phone’s GPS was terrible a year ago. It would often think I was on a country road rather than the adjacent highway or vice versa, and so would incorrectly tell me to keep driving or take an exit that didn’t exist, only registering my actual location a few minutes later – if so …that’s what registered it in the first place. When I launched it, it took several minutes to find my location, and it didn’t do a great job of finding an address when I typed in a business name. I was angry that I had spent $339 on the phone, case and screen protector so I didn’t have to rely on my smartphone and all it had done to me so far was trigger my anxiety and me almost ruining a date.
But I decided to make it work, and a year later the Light Phone 2 is still my main phone. To be fair to the Light Phone, it has to be said that the situation wasn’t entirely its fault. Yes, the GPS was terrible and actually got me lost, but driving around Los Angeles makes me nervous on the best of days, and I should have tested navigating the city like a good little tech reviewer before driving 30 miles across county lines am going on a date.
This mashup of a 2020s phone – with its chunky plastic body, e-ink touchscreen and deliberate lack of apps – isn’t for everyone. Reviewers and tech enthusiasts have finished using the Light Phone 2 with little more than a shrug. Others really enjoyed it but couldn’t fit it into their lives. Even The edge wrote: “We might say we want to give up our addiction to technology, but who among us is willing to spend $350 on a device that does so little?” Back in 2019. But the boom in “dumb phones” is real and the People are looking for ways to peel their eyes from their smartphones like a layer of Elmer’s glue from their hand – to remove a part of themselves that isn’t actually a part of themselves.
The Light Phone works for me because I was willing to live a smartphone-free life as much as possible. Muting notifications and deleting apps from my phone hadn’t helped curb the urge to check my accounts. When I felt anxious or bored, reaching for my phone was an automatic response, to the point where sometimes I wouldn’t realize I was holding my phone until I was 10 cat videos deep on Instagram. I’m one of those people who likes to be in control of my abilities, and that scared me. By making the Light Phone my primary phone, I hoped to separate myself from easy access to social media and change my relationship with how and when I accessed the internet. The Light Phone 2 had the right lack of features: no email, no social media, no internet browser or other apps, so the first step in my process was easy to achieve.
My smartphone became the equivalent of the gateway desktop PC I had as a teenager: a device kept in another room that I had to physically go to if I wanted to get online. Within a week of using the Light Phone, my total smartphone usage dropped from four hours a day to under an hour a week – and it stayed that way. By not using a single device for everything, I reintroduced some of the same technological frictions we had at the start of the 21st century.
The Light Phone took some getting used to. GPS has improved tremendously in the last year. (I’m no longer afraid of getting lost and puking in my car.) Texting is still frustrating because the e-ink screen is slow. That’s why I now call my friends more often – via the Light Phone or on video from my computer, if you are abroad. Plus, it was awkward at first to explain to my family and friends why I couldn’t immediately check Instagram when they sent me a funny meme, or why I couldn’t see a picture they texted me. The Light Phone does not support MMS or hyperlinks in texts. Instead, these messages are forwarded to my email.
I used to think this was an inconvenience, but when I read Cal Newports Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World helped me understand what my quest for disconnection was all about: reconnecting with the physical world. This doesn’t mean becoming an idiot, but rather limiting the ways our phones distract us from the things that really matter. This one sentence in his introduction brought things full circle: “They agreed with my arguments about distractions in the office, but as they then explained, they were probably even more concerned about the way new technologies interfere with the time they spend outside “Seem to take meaning and satisfaction away from work.” Finally, someone has put into words the deep despair into which my smartphone has torn me.
I haven’t managed to completely do without my smartphone. I keep it in my bag in case I need it for certain things, like restaurant QR codes, authentication apps to log into my work accounts, and Slack when I’m traveling for work. But I’ve started buying digital albums again and uploading them to my Light Phone, like the good old iPod days. (Later Spotify.) I can receive calendar reminders, listen to podcasts, make calls, and send text messages. My smartphone no longer has a data plan. So when I need to use it, I connect to the Light Phone’s integrated hotspot. However, I more often use the hotspot with my Kobo to be able to borrow books from the library on the go. My life is so much easier and more focused than it was a year ago because I intentionally made it harder for myself to be distracted by my phone.
Some critics say the Light Phone isn’t worth its price because it doesn’t have the same number of features as a budget smartphone. I ask her: What is the price of your happiness? I don’t know what mine is, but it’s definitely worth way more than $339.
Photography by Joanna Nelius / The Verge