Beautility

I have had a pretty ambivalent relationship with my phone for quite a while now. On one hand, all of us would struggle to forgo one altogether, given it is now a primary driver in almost all of our social and professional lives. Having the seemingly infinite wealth of human knowledge at my fingertips seems invaluable a lot of the time, especially when I'm trying to impress at dinner parties.

That was a joke. Obviously I don't get invited to parties, dinner or otherwise.

The point remains though - it is not exactly a hot take to suggest we are "enslaved" to our phones, or some other suitably sensational choice of phrase. I spend a decent amount of time on my phone, and quite a lot of that time I suspect does not really benefit me, often making me experience things negatively, eg the increasing-less-mild sense of nihilism I have whenever I read the news. So overall is my phone +EV for me, I should I, ever the contrarian-wannabe-hipster-douchebag, stop using me phone (and then immediately proceed to brag about it to everyone who'll listen)?

No. I am trying not to be "that guy", and just admitting that I am millenial trash and that my iPhone dictates my life at this point. In the unending and naive quest to improve my life though, I discovered this, a simple post with a few relatively straightforward ideas to change one's iOS habits, with big promises about how it would impact my use of the device. I set everything up tonight and it was about as easy as advertised - only 15 minutes or so in total. So far I am enjoying the new layout a lot more than the old one, although of course it is early days yet. Unlocking my phone to see basically nothing is a pretty good reminder that I should probably just lock my phone again and get on with something.

I'll report back next weekend with how I feel after a week in this new bleak, minimalistic mobile landscape.