https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60763168
I know a few people who just refuse to get a smart phone. The dumb phones have their appeal.
I have a 50yo neighbor with a flip phone. He made a conscious decision as all this internet stuff came along that he didn't want to participate. He has never had a computer, an email address or a smartphone in his life. It limits him to certain types of jobs, but that was part of his decision process too.
>I have a 50yo neighbor with a flip phone
I have a 63yo brother I keep on a flip phone (and off the internet at home). He's able to live alone and manage his meals, meds, & shopping but he is *extremely* vulnerable to con artists, homeless, beggars, social issues, etc.
I have a 90 year old mother on a flip phone for emergencies. She calls me on her landline for instructions on how to use the flip phone before she takes it with her. IF she takes it with her. IF she remembered to charge it first.
My sister-in-law, 38 and a researcher at UC Berkeley has a flip phone -- she just wants to opt out of all the noise.
Meanwhile, my dad is 92 and loves his iPhone. He just dropped his landline. The iPhone has so much better acoustics than any landline he could find and it works much better with his declining hearing. When he realized I was still on an iPhone 6, he wanted to send me money so I could upgrade. I had to convince him that I was fine.
The other HUGE advantage of the iPhone is that it integrates with the Apple Watch. He has the watch set to vibrate when the phone rings. So though he has trouble hearing the ringing phone, he has no problem feeling the watch buzz and, once he answers, he can hear the conversation just fine on the iPhone, especially if he's on the car stereo or he's at home where it's quiet.
Being able to pinch and zoom is also great as his close-up vision is not great anymore.
Since he doesn't really use email much and does not have any social network apps or anything like that on his phone, there is very little noise.
He also loves, really loves, Alexa. Alexa manages everything now - thermostat, lights, all manner of things. He loves being able to ask Alexa for the weather forecast. My brother convinced him not to allow Alexa to open the garage door due to security concerns, but I think Alexa can close it and can check the status. This is also helpful since he sometimes worries he forgot to close it. When he's home, he can just say "Alexa, close the garage door." When he's out and about, he has an app on the phone that lets him check the status and close the door if needed.
For him, with declining hearing but other faculties mostly intact, the smartphone is a huge help. His life is materially better and more independent thanks to having a smartphone. So there is that.
>Since he doesn't really use email much and does not have any social network apps or anything like that on his phone, there is very little noise.
I think this is the key. I have no social apps and my android email is walled off for just the phone. Really, not much difference from a feature phone except access to useful apps and a nice mobile browser.
Most probably can't resist adding fb, main email, etc. I can't stand how samsung doesn't allow you to remove the fb app. Just another reason this is probably my last sammy phone.
The Core is my only social media and there's no app for that. I have my personal email on my smartphone, but I have worked pretty aggressively to keep my email volume low with filters to keep a lot out of the inbox. It's common when I check my email in the morning to have no new email overnight.
Most minutes that my phone is in use is for audiobooks and podcasts. Those are my big phone addictions, but I really enjoy those. So overall, I do not feel like a smartphone degrades my life and, given how much I enjoy audiobooks and podcasts, for me it's a net upgrade.
I could see, however, that a change in circumstances like taking a job in an email-driven workplace or becoming a social media manager could make having a smartphone into a living hell. In that respect, I'm quite lucky.
<confession>There is the occasional drop down into the Wikipedia rabbit hole too... I can't forget about that. Having a browser on the phone is genuinely a bit dangerous for me</confession>
>> who just refuse to get a smart phone
That would be me .... so far. I have an old flip phone, plus, my iPad can go online via cellular if needed so I sometimes throw it in my purse.
I'm online so much when I'm at home that when I leave the house I prefer to be offline. It's much easier to be present in the moment of whatever I'm doing / whoever I'm with.
The vase majority of my smartphone use is *at* home. I think from what you said, my smartphone is simply a small version of your iPad (I do not own a tablet).
What I like is that I'm much less likely to get sucked in than on my computer because, frankly, I hate the small-screen interface. So one use case (aside from books and podcasts) is to check my email and see if there is anything urgent. If I do this on my computer, I go down the rabbit hole. If I do this on my phone, since it's such a hassle to actually reply on the phone, I usually put it down and go back to what I was doing or, if there is something urgent, I go over to my computer to deal with it and invariably end up sucked in and doing pointless things like posting about my smartphone habits on The Core.