The Upgrade: Why I Gave Up My Smartphone

I didn’t expect to feel this twitchy.
That’s the first thing I noticed.

On Day 1 of switching from my smartphone to a dumbphone—the TCL Flip 3—I caught myself reaching for it over and over again. Not because I needed anything in particular. Just… because. Directions. Music. Messages. Distraction. A sense of doing something.

But it wasn’t there.

Instead, I was left with a moment. Just a moment. Me, standing still.

And that’s what this whole experiment is about.

The Real Reason Behind This Shift

I started this project—The Upgrade—thinking it was about cutting back on distractions. Getting away from mindless scrolling and constant notifications. Reclaiming some time, maybe some peace.

But even in the first couple days, I realized that was just the surface.

This isn’t just about distraction. It’s about dependency. Emotional outsourcing. The phone had become my default response to… everything. Boredom. Discomfort. Stress. Even joy. It was a buffer, a pacifier, a performance.

Walking through a parking lot on Day 2, I felt a weird tension. Not in my body, but in the absence of something. I realized I usually pull out my phone in those in-between moments—not to check anything urgent, but to look busy. To feel connected. To avoid stillness.

This is what I’m trying to get underneath.
This is the real upgrade I’m after.

What I’m Hoping to Learn

I want to know what happens when you take the most convenient, most addictive, most normalized distraction out of your life. Not for a weekend. Not for a detox.
But as a way of living differently.

So far, I’ve felt anxious. I’ve felt quiet. I’ve felt like I’m peeling something away. And beneath it, I’m already finding things I didn’t expect—like presence. Like reflection. Like noticing how loud my thoughts are when there’s no screen to drown them out.

I’ll be writing about this every week.
What’s hard. What’s working. What’s changing.

Not because I think everyone should ditch their smartphones. But because I want to understand what mine was doing to me, and what might be possible without it.

This is Day 1. Let’s see what unfolds.