Today, October 15th, 2026, marks one year since i bought a Barbie flip-phone, put my sim card in it, and stopped using a smartphone. I thought i'd write a bit about my experience, feelings, and things i've noticed.
How did i get here?
In the years leading up to the switch, i'd been thinking more and more that flip-phones specifically were really cool. However, i never really considered that i could make the switch myself, since it would involve too much compromise. I'd never really seen anyone in my position have a dumbphone. I had a lecturer in spring 2025 who had one, and i'd seen some people on youtube describing their journey with it. In the case of the lecturer, he was a lot older than me and i don't think he'd ever used a smartphone. When it comes to people on youtube, i feel it can be hard to relate, because people's motivations might be quite different from mine. They have different daily lives from me, etc.
There were a few things in particular i thought would be difficult by switching to a flip-phone:
- Real-time messaging. I used to use discord and facebook messenger a lot to talk with people while i was out, especially to find eachother, for example. I'd say this was the most important one. It was the main thing i thought about as a blocker to switching.
- Sending money. There's an app that basically everyone uses, where you can send money to eachother. I used it frequently to send/receive money from friends.
- BankID is an app used for two-factor authentication towards various government services, which i also used semi-frequently.
- There's also an app for public transportation in my city, which i used frequently both for buying tickets and looking up departure times.
- Camera. I had a habit of taking a lot of pictures. If i were to switch to a dumbphone, i'd see myself missing that.
I also want to highlight a few things i didn't really think would be an issue to go without for me personally, to provide some more perspective.
- Other two-factor authentication apps. For the last couple of years, i've had all my TOTP codes in my password manager, which is a really smooth experience. I've never needed to have an app for two-factor authentication.
- Maps. The last couple years, i've gotten more familiar with my city, to the point where i know where most of the public transportation goes, or what to take to go a certain place. I find it very satisfying to be able to plan out my own route to go somewhere, so i only really used a maps app to get to a new place. These days, i look up the route at home beforehand, and remember it. A tip for this is to go on street view and "walk" out the route, which i find helps a lot with remembering.
So. How did i get past all of that and finally make the switch? It took surprisingly little. I was sitting, talking with some friends i'd recently gotten to know, and one of them pulled out her phone: A pink barbie flip phone. I of course was really curious and started asking her about her experience with it, how it worked for her in her day-to-day life. I found out she used sms to talk with her boyfriend for organizing
Making the switch
My experience
Overall, there have been surprisingly few annoyances and/or things i've missed, compared to what i've heard other people say or assume. I think that in general, compared to people of my generation, even before switching, i was less on my phone. I made a conscious choice back in april 2025 to scroll less on my phone, deleting tumblr, which is what i would scroll most idly. I stopped taking my phone to the bathroom, to bed, and stopped pulling it out when sitting on public transportation, for the most part. This worked surprisingly well. I think part of why it did is i can usually be content with being lost in my thoughts and/or looking out the window. I really enjoyed the freedom i felt, too. For a while, i'd been getting annoyed with myself every time i pulled out my phone, thinking it was an unnecessary distraction.
So, when i actually made the switch, i didn't really feel like much changed. In the days before deciding if i should actually do this, i tried to just keep my phone in my pocket a whole day at university, and noticed that it went really well. There wasn't a time where i felt like i really needed it.
Am i going back? (scary question)
I guess this is a scary question because i do definitely take some pride in not having a smartphone, and being limited in the ways i am by this lifestyle choice. As with many things,