Maybe getting a Dumbphone is the answer to everything?

Wednesday is (usually) about books and reading. Sometimes it’s just about writing. Look out, here goes…

I’m mildly tempted to get a Dumbphone. They’re making a bit of a comeback apparently. They went away, got laughed off. Then snuck back. The Dumphone, as even the dumbest of you will have by now worked out, is the antithesis of the Smartphone. You go back to the feel and vibe and look of your first Nokia, or that chunky ole Alcatel, or whatever it was you were peddling when you were first textin’.

The Dumbphone allows you to make and take calls, and send some messages. And that’s — mostly — it. There’s a kickass, long-life battery. Or is there? It’s really just that the apps are not kicking the shit out of it, right? But, at any rate, you get a whole lot of battery, and you keep your sanity if, for you, the smartphone is both a helpful thing in your life and the thing that’s slowly ruining you! Gone is the big-time App World that steals your time. It’s a way of hiding from social media, and/or dating apps, and/or whatever else you get up to online via the sickening convenience of your phone. The Dumphone buys you back some time. Buys you back bits and pieces of yourself.

I don’t (quite) have a phone addiction. And if anything I’m getting better all the time. Little tests. I go out and leave it at home now and then. Or leave it in the car. I go to meetings and leave it on my desk or turn it off. I keep it completely turned off in movies. One of the reasons I go to the movies a lot these days is to buy two hours in relative darkness and silence, turning most of the world — and my phone — right off. Tuning out.

This is a big ole, busy world. Like our friend Brooks from The Shawshank Redemption says, it went and got itself in a big old hurry.

There’s a “cosplay” aspect to the Dumbphone that I think I found rather disgusting almost immediately. And that same “cosplay” aspect is now seeming quite enticing. Funny how that game goes.

I keep thinking about this Brian Eno quote lately:

“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”

The Dumphone — or, you know “mobile phone” as it was known back when it was a youngling — wasn’t a failure at all. It was the Great Leap Forward. But great leaps get surpassed by even greater leaps. To post 220 in a 50-over cricket match back in the 1980s was an okay knock, might even win the game. Now it’s no guarantee in a Twenty20 game, with less than half the overs.

But I think Eno’s quote might still apply. Because, now, the with the name Dumbphone, and the decision to make a regression, we can see that it’s choosing a lesser version for a reason. Comfort. Familiarity. Security. And of course lack of distraction. The failing is with the modern world and its modern devices.

I’ve been in this space for a bit. In various ways. I am very much excited by CDs. I find them the best medium for music. It shows I’m a fan, I’ve made a decision to own and to play, to keep and collect, but it’s not this ridiculous object of fetishisation that the vinyl record is — and I say that as someone who will likely never part with his entire record collection; I did of course trim it right back to not-such-a-problem status a few years ago.

My latest technological regression though, is Dumbphone-level. I’ve ordered myself a Walkman. A proper old cassette-playing Walkman. For the total of five tapes that I own. I plan on using it walk to work. No checking my phone along the way. No texting and not quite paying attention as I nearly bump into people, or almost get hit by a bus, or miss the bus I was intending to get onto because I’m sorta busy right now updating my fuckwad status.

I couldn’t be more pleased with myself for having a Walkman, and the promise of a tiny, but important-to-me tape collection. I’ll get over it soon. Sure. But while I’m in it, it’s not hurting anyone.

Now, I don’t actually think I’ve got that much of a phone problem. And I don’t think I could go full Dumbphone at all anyway. I like my smart-phone too much for what it does as a car-stereo/navigation system.

But it was pleasing to hear about the apparent comeback of the Dumbphone.

And it is still kinda tempting. A game of Snake, and not much more besides.

It might help me tackle the pile of books by my bed. They’re just sitting there. Not bothering anyone. Unfortunately. They’re currently stacked precariously on top of another pile of books, which is conveniently located next to a third pile of books. And then yet more books sit on top of those.

The Dumbphone isn’t sounding so dumb now after all.