I didn't buy a smart phone until about five years ago. I don't like them. But, they're ubiquitous, and it's pretty hard to be without one and function in the world. The goal should not be to pretend they don't exist, but to reckon with your addiction or 'hyperconnectivity' issues and be able to deal with having one. They aren't going away, unfortunately, and in the future the world will continue to assume you have one, and expect you to use it.
I can't answer why you should care. Maybe you're more tolerant than me. But I can list a few ways in which not having a smartphone can be more annoying:
It's part of most multifactor authentication systems, as has already been mentioned. You could get by with SMS-based MFA, but you really should not as it is demonstrably insecure. In the future, these other methods will likely just go away as well, as they should.
At some point during COVID, a lot of restaurants stopped giving you printed menus, and expect you to use a QR code to access a menu on the web. Some provide printed menus upon request, but I've been to places that just don't have them anymore.
Here's a personal one: On a road trip a while ago, I stopped at a gas station to buy a map, only to discover that they don't sell them. This blew my mind: growing up, this is just what you did when you were in a state far from home, and you could count on any gas station having a folded paper map of the state in it. I don't think you can count on being able to navigate that way anymore, so you'd either have to plan ahead and buy maps, or buy a dedicated GPS unit, or use a smart phone for navigation.
Later on that same road trip, I stopped in a small town and wanted to walk around for a bit. I discovered that all the parking spaces cost money (fine) but that there were no parking meters or kiosks to pay at. Just a sign with a QR code on it, presumably pointing to a website or app download where I had to pay. In theory I could have pulled my laptop out of my suitcase, connected it to wifi somehow (not via tethering, but maybe a nearby coffee shop or something), and used the webcam instead, but come on.
My insurance company offers a "service" where they track your driving via a smartphone app. This is an optional service, and naturally I told them to screw off. It is not hard to imagine, however, this becoming not-optional, or being penalized for not submitting to it in the future.
Oh, here's another one: my last employer bought me a smartphone on day one of my job there. Not avoidable. I did not stay at that job very long, but I don't think it's all that unusual for companies to just assume you're going to use a smartphone and be in touch with them.
Thanks for pointing out these points. The people who are planning to ditch a smartphone completely, please explain how are you going to overcome these problems.
I will give an abridged version since I'm about to head out:
For MFA: I have an OTP client on my PC, as well as the ability to receive SMS using JMP Chat. MFA does not add much security for me since I already use long, randomly generated passwords from my local password manager, so I only turn it on if a service requires it for some reason.
For restaurants: I will tell the waiter that I cannot scan a QR code. If they don't have paper menus because they seriously expect me to have a phone, then I seriously expect that they have a phome that can scan it for me.
Navigation: this is a hard one for me. I have never driven in an unfamiliar location without a GPS. I am trying to minimize driving in favor of public transit anyways, but my roommate has a GPS unit that they said I can have. Will have to experiment with it.
Parking: this just seems so unfathomably dumb, even with a phone I don't think I'd park there.
Insurance: I'd change companies if mine required something like that.
My partner and I are having our first kid. We were given a sheet with a timeline of the various appointments and check-ins. Each appointment had an associated QR code where bookings could be made. No other details, e.g. contact details, were on it. Not a problem for us, having smartphones, but it did give me pause; surely there are folk who don't have a phone that can scan these, or a phone at all. What extra BS do these people have to go through to do something that would take me 5s with my smartphone? This is only one example, but still, it is an example of how disadvantaged people are even more disadvantaged because of the expectation that everyone has a smartphone. Probably just an oversight on the sheet author's part but is it one born out of their expectations around smartphone adoption? Maybe
That said, maybe there was a sheet without QR codes and the nurse made a call that we looked like we had smartphones and gave us the QR code one. Can't rule that out.
Yeah I'd be totally screwed in that scenario. I've been screwed once before by QR-only things, at a restaurant whose menu was exclusively online, and they didn't know the URL because "it's in the QR code". Like... okay I guess I just won't eat today.
The world is getting to a point where the only way you’re going to be able to do business or any type of transaction is through a smart phone. If you don’t have a smart phone, it’s gonna be very difficult for you to function in the world at some point.
I have not experienced this. I bought my first smart phone last year and I literally just use it for voice and text. Could this be a big city thing? I saw someone mention paying for parking lots but they are all free in the town not far from me. There's no public transit here.
I'm very likely going back to a flip phone, probably something like a CAT unless there is a tougher one that works on T-Mobile.
This is good argument to get a dumbphone and be a thorn in the side of techno-capitalists' vision of "progress." It's all about measuring metrics and tracking consumers in the pursuit of squeezing a few more dollars out of us
An often repeated example is financial institutions. Some require the use of their app for 2FA, for example. Think further along these lines and you'll undoubtedly come up with other examples.
You shouldn’t care if you have no use case for one. Not sure if you’re attempting to bait people into argument or if you just want to flex how much of a Luddite you are.
Dumbphones a.k.a feature phones, are perfect for children, especially young children that need a means to call their parents, but not a means to browse the internet, engage in malformed social interaction, or game for hours at a time.
