Improving my relationship to technology...with more technology!

wallet for scale

1: Ebook

Reasons I love my ebook:

small enough to toss in back pocket as a phone-replacement when I'm going somewhere where I might be alone with my thoughts for more than 30 seconds.

& it's also got wifi and a browser–never feel urge to check socials or anything, but do have it in an emergency or whatever

battery lasts forever

its an iPod for books!

mine only cost $70. And yes, amazon shows ads on the lock screen. But other than that, I have been pleasantly surprised at how much the device feels like just Normal Hardware. Any .epub I find I can pretty easily get onto the device. iPod for books.

I put off getting a kindle for the longest time. Thought to myself books are superior. Still think that, but the kindle is so easy and so I'm definitely reading a lot more.

2: RFID/NFC shenanigans

I flashed https://jakesimonds.com/rfid/ onto a NFC card thing that I keep in my wallet. So not having my phone on me, I can meet someone and we can connect on any of the socials.

Haven't actually used this in the wild yet, but I have in my life grabbed my phone going to a networking something because 'Oh if everybody trades socials I wanna have my phone'.

3: battery powered alarm clock

Like the ebook, had heard about this forever, but never taken the plunge. It's great.

4: 'Beachhead' of phonelessness

It started with runs. Lost my earbuds, had analysis paralysis on replacing them, tried a few runs without music/podcasts and found it interesting. The snippets of conversations you overhear passing people on walking paths. More tiny moments of connection with strangers–a nod or a smile. A chance to think uninterrupted for a minute.

I still nearly always have my phone on me, but I am asking the question more as I leave the house: do I need my phone?

Funnily enough, often the thing I realize I really need it for is 2FA for my laptop if I'm going somewhere to work.

Silly Overengineered Idea: The Best Phone

In the spirit of Simon Willison's phrase, "the best sandboxes run on someone else's computer" , the best phone would really be someone else's phone.

Idea:

A page on your personal website, jakesimonds.com/forgotmyphone. Mobile-friendly landing page would be password protected, and when you enter the password you land at just a dashboard connected to your email, DMs, notifications...whatever's most important to you.

So basically the idea would be, you can leave your phone at home and if something happens all you would need to do is find literally anyone on the street who will let you borrow their phone for a second, and then you tap, login, and do your business. Voila, you have 7 Billion phones!