Opinion | I Gave Up My Smartphone for a Dumbphone. You Can, Too.

Downgrading is the radical decision to step backward in an age of dizzying, almost compulsory forward momentum. I have watched many people attempt to reduce their screen time, an agonizing process requiring constant vigilance and self-restraint. Removing the option altogether, I’ve found, is the surest way out.

When TikTok was briefly shut down last month, the app’s more than 150 million American users had the same sudden realization. The platform’s centrality to human connection was made explicit and intolerable. Billions of social ties were erased by forces unseen and beyond our control. We had built this online world only to find that it did not belong... See more

What’s more, nothing on social media belongs to us. Our art, our ideas and our relationships are reduced to data to be mined and exploited by tech corporations, sometimes even used to train A.I. models. We have no backups, either: Few people still keep address books or mailing lists, much less diaries or photo albums. When we lose access to social ... See more