Pints With Aquinas - 3 Months w/ NO Smart Phone! (How It's Been)

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

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G'day and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd and it has been three months since I got rid of my smartphone and I'm here today to tell you about what that's like and honestly to encourage you to do exactly what I have done. All of this started about three years ago. I was feeling very overwhelmed by technology. On Friday nights I would drive my backpack to a friend's house and in that backpack was my laptop and my smartphone. And those are the only two ways I could access the internet at the time. We didn't have a desktop or anything at home. And I go home for that weekend and just remember feeling how slow the days would go and how I wish life was like this all the

time. After that, I heard a podcast by Matt Walsh, this is about several months later, about social media and what it's doing to us. And I decided to get off social media. I haven't been on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook for about four, I guess three years now. Somebody else runs it, I don't access it ever, never go on if it looks like I'm interacting, it's just one of the people that I pay

to make it seem that way. And I remember thinking, gosh, my life is so much better because of that. Shortly after that, I started taking August off of the internet. This is the third year in a row now I've done that. So the entire month of August, zero keyboards, emails, YouTube, anything. I'm not on for the entire month. And for the last three years, I've been realizing just how drastically I

need to change my life to live a more beautiful life. I want to be somebody who's present to his wife, present to his children and friends and community. And I don't want to be sucked into the matrix or to put it as Dave Rubin put it on my show, I don't want to be a battery powering the Matrix. And so even as I sit here today, having gone three months without a smartphone, I still think much more radical things need to be done in my life. It's like I keep getting these tastes of freedom and it's amazing. So, but maybe I'll talk a little bit about that later on.

Anyway, at the start of August this year, when I went offline and gave my phone away and everything, I decided to get a dumb phone because I wanted my parents in Australia to get a hold of me if they needed to, or my wife if she needed to or something like that. And so I started looking in to different phones. And the phone I decided to go with is a phone put out by Techless.

It looks like a smartphone, but it is not. And they built everything from the ground up. So there is a phone, there is text messaging, there is even maps, but all of this is built from the ground up. They don't use Google or anything like that. And it came in the mail and I unboxed it. And how you feel kind of excited

when you unbox something and you think to yourself, God, this is going to be terrific. You know, I'm never going back. But at the same time, I knew I'd made that promise before about things. So I didn't want to be overly optimistic about how long I could make this last. It's been three months and I 100% will never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever go back to a smartphone and if you can I would highly encourage you to get rid of your smartphone as well. And I don't say that from a judgy preachy place.

I say that as somebody who has just tasted this great deal of freedom in my own life because of it and I want you to share it as well. Yeah, man. Okay, where to start? What do I start from something that happened to me recently? That I think drives home the point that I need to make even more radical decisions. Okay, so my wife is currently in France. She's doing a river cruise. She's been in Paris and Lisieux and these different places. She'll be back on Sunday. I miss her so much. It's been just side note. I love my wife so much.

Like she is so great. Not having her in the house is like not being home. It would be like going to somebody else's house and someone saying, relax. You're like, I can't, this is totally unfamiliar. Not having my wife is unfamiliar and I don't like it. Don't tell her I said that, but I can't. This is totally unfamiliar. Not having my wife is unfamiliar, and I don't like it. Don't tell her I said that, but I can't wait to have her back on Sunday.

Anyway, why was I telling you about my wife? Um, I don't even know. She's in France, okay. So she's in France, okay. Two days ago, I remember that at the start of August, I had given my laptop to a neighbor friend of mine, Dr. Welker, who teaches economics here at Franciscan. Great guy.

Him and I read the Lord of the Rings this summer. Another side note, I might have ADD. Have I mentioned that? Anyway, it's been like three months, I didn't even have my laptop back because I didn't think to ask for it because I have a desktop at work and I just, you know, whatever. But anyway, it was this one night and I was feeling kind of tired and I thought to myself, you know what, I would just love to watch a few shows of whatever tonight. Like, it'd just be nice to have my laptop in the kitchen. I could clean the kitchen, maybe watch a show, listen to a podcast while I clean. That'd be nice. So I wrote to them. I'm like, hey, do you still have my laptop?

Kind of hoping you'll say yes. And they say yes. And they brought it over. And I said to myself, I'll just watch a few shows tonight. Well, I just went down the rabbit trail. It was awful. I mean, I just watched a ton of meaningless things. And then I think about like 10.45 at night, quickly shut the laptop lid for fear that I would spend another couple of hours wasting my life. And the next night I said to myself, OK, I'm only gonna watch two shows of this thing. It was very intentional. So long as I'm intentional, it's okay.

And I did it, I just felt totally not rested again. So I've decided I'm getting rid of my laptop as well. So that's happening today. But yeah, man, it's a bloody difficult thing to be present. To actually feel your feelings and to be aware of your body and to be present to what's going on feelings and to be aware of your body and to be present to what's going on in your head. That's bloody hard because sometimes I don't like what's going on in my head and the computer

and the phone help me avoid that. Now I am fully aware of the irony of what I'm saying to you. I'm fully aware that I now make my living on YouTube and what I'm telling you to do is to get rid of your smartphone. Listen, your life would be a better, I think your life would be better if you never watched me again and got rid of your smartphone. Like I'm really okay with you doing that. I think your life would improve. It wouldn't be beneficial to me obviously, but it would be better for you. So you should consider quitting pints with Aquinas altogether, never watching this again, but never watch anything else again and just sort of get off, get offline. So I wrote to the guys,

actually had a good chat with the guys who run this company, they're called Techless. This is called the Wise Phone. They're Christian guys, actually, north of Dallas. I had a good chat with them and I said to them, I've had this experience. Basically if I'm not getting any money from this promo code, but I told them I would be plugging their phone. And if you put frad in the promo code at checkout, that will give you $40 off of this phone. There is a link in the description below. Click it and consider getting this phone. The reason I love this phone is there were three kinds of things I wasn't willing to

give up. Maybe I will be at one point, but I'm not now. And that was maps. I wanted to have maps. I didn't want to have to buy a GPS unit at whatever, Walmart or something. I wanted to do group text, you know, and then also taking photos because for my work, I take photos of my receipts and I text them to my accountant. God bless him. Those three things I can do with this phone. It takes photos. I can, you know, I was at Costco the other day buying something. I took a photo of something, sent it to my wife.

Is this what you want? Yes, okay. So it's actually really great. I love it. So anyway, if you wanna get the phone, click the link below. Use FRADD, F-R-A-D-D, I think it's all capital letters, and then they'll take 40 bucks off

and you can get this phone. But I'm never gonna go back. All right, so here's some of the things that I have realized having been off the phone for three months. The first is I don't buy nearly as many things because I'm not having my phone continually market to me. It's not advertising to me.

And I didn't realize just how often I bought things because of advertisements when I had my smartphone. But now that I don't have a smartphone and I have a dumb phone, I'm aware of how much I was buying before because of these little images and advertisements that would come up on the smartphone. So really glad about that.

Second thing, I don't listen to podcasts anymore. And again, your life would be better if you got a dumb phone and never listened to me again. I think that's true. Wouldn't benefit me, would benefit you. Maybe I'm overstating my case here. People do write to me and tell me that they've come into the Catholic Church,

that they're converting, you know, and learning about things like this, right? So I get that there's some benefit to my podcast, but I don't think there's nearly as much as I'd like to pretend that there is. Getting rid of your phone, I think, would be way better. But I don't listen to podcasts anymore. Why don't I listen to podcasts anymore? Well, because this doesn't have a podcast app. I think they're currently doing work on this phone so you can kind of drag like a file onto the phone

to listen to something, but it won't be like a Spotify thing. But anyway, so I like when's the last time you sat down to listen to a podcast? Unless you were driving somewhere. Probably never. So because of that, I just don't listen to podcasts anymore. I drive around in silence and I've actually really liked that. It's been really cool not to have people's voices in my head all day. Even people's voices that I greatly respect and even benefit from. It's been nice to walk around with that kind of piece.

The other thing that happens is I go home from work and I can no longer, I actually am forced to unplug. Since I don't have computers at home and I don't have a smartphone at home, there is actually no possible way for me to go online when I go home, especially now that I'm getting rid of this laptop that I just got back. Email is not a possibility for me. YouTube, just to see how that clip's doing, not a possibility for me. And I actually find it painful. I'm like, oh, I want that, but I can't have it. But I think that's a good thing. The other night, my daughter was sitting on the couch with me,

and she was reading a book, and I was thoroughly enjoying it. And I thought to myself that if I had the possibility to distract myself to death right now through the phone, I'd probably want that. Unfortunately, I'd probably want to send my kids to bed early so I could watch this show or check how this thing's doing. Not a possibility for me anymore. So I would really recommend that you think about this. Is it hard? Yeah, it's painful.

It's hard, man. Like I told this story last time I was in Savannah I recommend that you think about this. Is it hard? Yeah, it's painful. It's hard, man. Like I told this story last time, I was in Savannah and I needed to get to the airport, but I couldn't get an Uber. And so I got a taxi, which was such a weird experience. This is just an example of one of the things that's tough about having a dumb phone.

I had to go down, ask for a number for a taxi, called the taxi. They said it'd be 20 minutes. They dropped me off and then I got to give my credit card information then and it's just different. And there's a lot of things like that, that are difficult. Because the world is now revolving around this idea that everybody has a smartphone. And so you can have this app for this and this app for that. I don't have that. So life is less convenient in many ways, but it's a heck of a lot more peaceful.

And I actually really want that for you. It's nice to be able to talk about something on YouTube that you genuinely believe in. Like this is something I genuinely want for you. I know I'm not alone, you know, I know a lot of people are just, their head feels so scrambled because of social media. They find themselves getting continually angry, distracted, unable to read a book, unable to read a page without feeling the need to check something or, you know, maybe you have a spouse and you're like, why is she on her phone right now? Why is he on his phone right now? You know, like, I think we're all struggling with this. I think proof that we're all struggling with this is the fact that iPhone now has a feature that tells you how many hours you've spent looking at your phone.

And I guess the goal is to make that less the next week. Apple's not incentivized to make you use their product less, but clearly there's a demand for that kind of feature. So I just want to kind of encourage you to do something crazy right now and break your phone, like smash it with a hammer. Don't give it to someone else. That would be a terrible I just want to kind of encourage you to do something crazy right now and break your phone Like smash it with a hammer. Don't give it to someone else. That would be a terrible thing to do to somebody Smash it Ask your spouse maybe or your your parents. Don't do it if you're well, do what you want. How about that? And if that means never listening to pints of the coin us again I genuinely think your life would be better. If it means

sitting home and reading the book, it would be better. So that's that. Life's great. Really happy about it. As I say, I'm about to make some other serious changes. I think this is just the beginning. Just living more locally, walking to people's houses, spending time with people I care about, getting off the interwebs, which I know again is ironic because I have a YouTube channel. I'm struggling with that. All right, I would love to see what some of you all have to say here in the comment section. Whoa there. Jonathan says, I've been two and a half months on dumb phone now. I absolutely love it cool. Tell us why Jonathan Let's see if you got anything you'd want to share feel free

I'm not sure how to say this person's name Nay, thank you for sharing your testimony It makes me rethink the ways I use technology and how much I really need it. How much of it I really need, yeah. The answer is you don't need nearly as much as you think you do, nor do I. So you should get rid of your phone. That's kind of it, man.

As a GenXer, we did not have smartphones for our youth, early adulthood. I got a phone to talk to my kids and track them. All right, so that's cool, but you also don't need a phone now. I my kids and track them. All right, so that's cool. But you also don't need a phone now. I'm willing to bet. So I think people like me who kind of grew up before the internet tend to like speak

negatively about young kids today, about their phone use. But meanwhile, I mean, I see grandparents who seem way just as addicted to their phones as kids. So I'm not saying this to you specifically who made that comment, but let's not just sort of congratulate ourselves for growing up without phones. Nothing was required of you back then. Something's required of you now, and that's to live more intentionally. So if you do have a phone or an iPad, you could consider getting rid of them. I mean, not the least of reasons is the fact that Apple is spying

on what you do. Google is searching, scanning your emails, things like that. As I say, Wise Phone, they told me they built the message app, they built the phone app from the ground up. Google is not involved. No big tech is involved in this. It's kind of cool. Christian says, Matt, something I struggle with is always wanting background noise. I work from home when I am working or doing stuff around the house. Is that something you struggle with? How did you combat that?

I did, I struggled with it. And I understand exactly what you're talking about. I got a record player when I took the month of August off and that was really great. Just to be able to buy a record and to intentionally listen to a short piece of music and not just consume it, you know, like billions of songs randomly on Spotify or something.

Get her a Spotify too while you're at it. So that's something, that's one way I enjoy. So like last night I was cleaning the kitchen and I put on my record player and I listened to just different stuff that I like. I don't know if it's too cliche to say I really like jazz but I do. So I just listen to some of that. But in the car it was hard at first but actually here's another benefit that just came to mind. So one thing I've noticed that I'm doing more is I'm actually calling people more to talk with them.

So I think, whereas before, maybe I was listening to this podcast or watching this video or listening to this audible book or what have you, it's like, I still want connection. Maybe there was other things that sometimes, they mimic connection, but I still want that. So what I find is I call people up.

I'm like, hey, how are you doing? So I mean, maybe that's my way of like compensating for that lack of background noise, right? Like, oh, I don't like this. I want to call someone. And even if that is the case, okay, maybe I need to work on that, but it's still kind of cool to connect with another human being and to do that over Listening to it. So that's another thing. I've noticed I kind of cool people more Salty tribe says I really want to ditch my smartphone. Just trying to figure out how to run a business without it I only use the social media, but would love to quit that one as well

Yeah, so I mean look I'm somebody who runs a business. Pines for the coinist is a business. We've got like five or six people that work for me in different capacities. And three years ago, when I quit social media, I paid someone to run it for me. I gave them my passwords. I told them what I was after, told them what to do, what not to do, and they took it over. I have somebody who does my shipping. So when people support at pineswithaquinas.com, they become a subscriber over there. I have somebody who gets the notification and sends the beer stein, right? Sends the book.

This is not something I was able to do immediately. It's because I didn't have any kind of cash flow. But once I started having some money coming in, okay, now I can hire a full time video editor. Now I can hire this person and an assistant who books the interviews and things like that. And that honestly just sort of made it so that I was able to kind of gradually detach from the phone. So I would I would recommend look, I don't know you, so I wouldn't want to say anything, what do you say, sort of irresponsible, but just be careful of making excuses or saying like one day I'm going to do this.

Like, maybe do it before this video is over, you know, especially if you've paid your phone off, just smash it against the corner of a table. Just do it. Oh, here's the other thing I did. When I got this new dumb phone, I just got a new phone number. I don't know about you, but it's like I've had my old phone number

for the last seven, eight years, and every human being I've encountered on planet Earth for more than five minutes, for some reason I gave my number to. And so I was just now in this like, I'm always getting back, always text messages, always, and I just thought, I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna be in contact with 80 people

every couple of weeks, whatever. So I got rid of my phone number as well. And then what I did was, before I got rid of my phone, I wrote a text and it said, hey, here's my new dumb phone number. I'm getting rid of this phone. Please keep it secret. Don't give it out.

And then I cut in, sorry, on my smartphone, right? I cut and I pasted that and I sent it to about 20 people who live near me and who I have daily communication with. That's a difficult thing to do because I know that there are people who have been writing to me. I mean, I just assume that there's been people who've been texting me and they're wondering why the heck it is I haven't gotten back to them.

But I think it's just like a price I'm willing to pay. Like this idea that you have a monopoly on my time, that you can text me and I am under some obligation to write you back and vice versa. Like just because I text you doesn't mean you have to text me back ever, especially not right away. But it's like, as I say, the more we all use smartphones, there's this expectation like it hasn't cut down our

it hasn't given us more leisure. It's made us more like, you know, rats in one of those wheels, you know. So, yeah, man. All right. Goofball McDoude, it's incredible how you're teaching us how to disconnect after having some of this technology for less than 10 years. I'm planning on moving to a more rural state where I may have to disconnect. Yeah.

So like, I'll tell you, like, here's something I do, and I'm not proud of it, but I do tend to be quite idealistic. I have a melancholic sort of disposition, and I do tend to be quite idealistic. I have a melancholic sort of disposition and I do tend to have one of those personalities that thinks unless I'm doing this perfectly, I may as well not be doing it at all. You know what I mean? Like unless I'm praying the rosary every night

with my kids, then you know, then may as well never pray the rosary. If I'm gonna play it like once a week, like I get so disappointed with myself. I do set expectations. So the reason I share that is like this idea of yours to kind of go to a rural state and disconnect.

Maybe that is what you're being called to do, but it's like that line from the scripture, he who is faithful in small things will be put in charge of greater things. If I can't get rid of my phone, how the heck do I expect to ever live more rurally? Do you know what I mean? So rather than aiming for that big thing and not doing anything before you attain it, start trimming away right now those things that you can so that you will be in a position to better survive a more rural area.

That would be something I would think of. This is lovely. Not listening to Spotify every time I have some free time. Yeah, quit, I think quit Spotify. I really think get rid of Spotify. Stop watching YouTube. Again, if you're going to be on YouTube, I think a video like this is more beneficial

than a lot of videos. So I'm not totally crapping on my channel, but there you go. Do I still watch TV? Okay, so we have a TV in the basement. It's not a smart TV. So we do have DVDs that we've approved, you know, that our children can watch occasionally.

But what we find is they get rather bored of that and they definitely ask, like, why can't we have like Disney Plus? Why can't we? Sometimes, because I'll have friends that have it and like, I don't want to support stupid Disney. I don't want to support pornographic Netflix. Don't want to do it? So not don't want to support pornographic Netflix. Don't want to do it.

Not going to happen. And they stop asking. And so yeah, occasionally my kids would go downstairs and they'll watch a video, like a movie, like especially on Saturdays and Sunday mornings, you know, they might do that, or Saturday mornings. I never go into the basement to watch TV. I don't want to do that because the basement is kind of gross. But I'm like,

I'm, I would, some nights I'll say to my wife, Hey, let's watch a show. And we do. We watch a show on her laptop and I enjoy that very much. So I'm not, you know, maybe it'll be cool to get one to the place one day where I don't do that either, but I am still there right now. And that's okay for me. I like just being with my wife and hanging out, you know. Let's see. You're not helping me cover a dumb phone. I've been on the fence on this for a while but I do use a couple of apps for my job. Right. So, okay. So, maybe that's true and maybe there is no way around it and that's okay. There's certain things that you can do on your smartphone

to limit its accessibility significantly. In settings, you can block the app store and have somebody else put in a code, right? You can even like seriously limit all the websites you can access through any other app, not just Safari, but any app. So you could have a smartphone that has those two apps and then kind of turn off the browser feature.

There are ways that you can significantly reduce that. Jonathan says, what I've found, okay, so Jonathan's the fellow who has a dumb phone. He says, what I've found is that most of the inconvenience of dumb phone fall on other people. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, brother. My friends have to remember to text instead of message or to not text me links or photos, rather email them.

Yeah, exactly. Like people will text me a link and I can't do anything with that link. But I also have friends who are even cooler than me. That's not hard that maybe, but they can't do group text because they've got like a flip old phone, you know? Or they're just really bad at texting. So when I'll text them, they just call me back, which I think is kind of nice. Here's something if you want people to stop texting you

call them every time they text you. Hey man what's up? Hey! Maybe they don't really want to chat with you. That's kind of cool. Rachel it's so lovely to see you here my friend I see you commenting on my different videos and it's you seem like a lovely person so thanks for being here. That said, I haven't read what this is about to say. I'm beginning to feel ready to do this. If you can do it, Matt, especially as your job is having a YouTube channel

on the internet, oh yeah, we can absolutely do it too. Yeah, exactly, that is a good point. Look, there might be legitimate situations where you can't get rid of your smartphone for work. I'm not pretending that there aren't those situations. But I run a YouTube channel. Think of all the excuses I could make as to why I need this for my family's livelihood.

You know? But I got rid of it and I'm really happy about that. So you probably can too. Or before you say no, at least consider, at least consider you're a coward making excuses and just sort of sit with that for a while. Let's see if that's not the case. By the way, again, in a day and age where we're always being marketed something, it might be hard to take me seriously because I'm actually telling you to do something with your life. And whenever someone's telling you to do something with your life, it's because they're benefiting from it. I've already said, Wisephone aren't paying me to aren't paying me right now to promote this.

They might in the future, they might become advertisers, but they're not right now. I certainly don't benefit from you not watching my YouTube videos. Like there's no benefit here that I can think of. That's not why I'm telling you to get rid of your smartphone. What the hell do I care? You know? Like I don't know you but I really do think it would be better for you. And there's two friends in Steubenville actually who I got I bought wise phones for. I said I'll buy these wise phones if you get rid of your smartphones. And they did, and now they're using it. My friend Sam Guzman, I had on the show recently.

I'm not sure if you ever watched that episode, but halfway through I told him point blank, I'm like, dude, you were at my house last night and you were on your phone a ton. Way too much. Like I kind of called him out a little, as gently as I could. And if you remember, I told Catholic Jamie,

like get the website up, let's buy him a phone. If you promise me you'll get rid of your smartphone, I'll buy it right now. And he didn't do it. But two days later, he texted me and he said, I'm ready. So he got rid of his smartphone and I bought him this wise phone. I'm not saying I'm gonna do that to every human being.

It was just like, my whole point in saying that is I'm not benefiting from you doing this. And I'm not trying to be like a self-righteous, Pharisaical jerk who thinks I'm better than other people. I'm not. I'm someone who has an addictive personality, whose head feels scrambled and who wants to live a more peaceful life. This is one of the ways I've been able to do it and I'm seeing actual benefits that are beautiful and I want that for you as well even though I don't know you. This person says I'm going to show this to my husband who is actually addicted to his screens.

I wonder if you have talked about screen addiction before. Good for you. Yeah. Have I talked about it? I speak and have spoken a lot on the issue of pornography. So I talk about pornography addiction and how in order for something to be addictive, it doesn't have to be a substance you're bringing into your body. That was sort of the old way we thought of addiction. Since neuroscientists started looking into the brain, it's changed how we understand the nature of addiction. Not just substances, but behaviors can be addictive as well. Gambling, for example, pornography, social media. There's good reason to think that these things are having negative impacts on our brain. Jay says, does your life feel better now despite the inconvenience of not having a smartphone?

I wanna make the leap of faith so bad, but I need to know it is truly worth it. Could I get three pros, three cons? Okay, so I don't know if you've listened to the, if you just jumped on the live stream, but three cons. Okay, I don't get to listen to podcasts. Sometimes I go on a road trip and I would really like to be able to listen to a podcast

that my friends are talking about. That's a con. Can't really think of any. Cause the others sound like cons, but they're not really. Like for example, when someone sends me a link, like someone sent me a link the other day and they said hey this is this comedian at their finest. And i couldn't click on it where i was i really wanted to so that's a con but it was like but i don't wanna walk around just responding to people's links. So it's cons okay it's a bit glitchy the phones a little bit glitchy like sometimes you click messages and it'll take.

Okay, it's a bit glitchy. The phone's a little bit glitchy. Like sometimes you click messages and it'll take a millisecond to open. Like this is created by several Christians north of Dallas. It's not created by a massive corporation in California that has a bazillion people working for them. So occasionally it freezes, but nothing so bad that I think,

oh, this isn't gonna work. So there's little frustrations like that, but you kind of just get used to it. It's, yeah. So I don't know, man, I don't really have cons to having this dumb phone. Another con though is if you travel for work, one thing that happened to me is I was flying Delta

and I usually have my Delta app open and it tells me when it's boarding because I didn't have my smartphone. I missed my flight. I've never missed my flight. I've traveled so much in the last eight years. So that was weird. So that's another con. Like one of the cons is the world is now assuming you have an iPhone. And so everything is being built around that fact. So it is inconvenient. But the fact that you're saying to me that you want to make this

leap of faith so bad shows me that like, yeah, it's causing anxiety. It's causing confusion. It's causing cloud fog. And you want to be away from that. Let me say this though, because I think, and I've said this before, but I think we expect the same immediate gratification from quitting our smartphones as we do from technology. In other words, technology has accustomed us to expect things immediately. And so what happens is people hear me give a talk on YouTube and then they get rid of their iPhone

and they get a wise phone, which is a dumb phone for those just showing up, link in the description below. And then they're like, I don't, this is annoying. I don't feel like peaceful and stuff. It's like, yeah, I know, but like, you just have to just give it a second. So that would be another thing I'd say. Vincent says,

if I am able to regulate my phone usage, do I really need to switch with dumb phone? I'm a young person, it just seems impractical. So, I mean, I guess no. If it's not a problem for you, then it's not a problem for you. But I think what happens is most of us think we have more self-control than we actually do.

And I don't think you should overestimate how pathetic you are. And not just you, I mean, you might be pathetic, I am, but other people, people will say things like, well, I'm gonna set like a limit on my phone. So I'll get a notification when to turn it off before bed. Or I'm gonna have a blue screen, you know, that thing that they do so it doesn't affect my,

the blue light doesn't affect my eyes or whatever. Or I'm gonna have a house for my phone and I'm gonna make sure it plugs in there. But then what happens is where we can pathetic human beings and our phones are smarter, I'm using that word in a sort of analogous sense, than we are. And we don't have the kind of self-control we thought we did.

The other thing is when you're surrounded by a world of people addicted to their iPhones, just because you're not as bad as them doesn't mean you're not bad. You might look good next to them, but that doesn't mean you're in a good place. So my answer is no, of course you don't need to switch to a dumb phone,

but you should consider it, I think. Benjamin has the opposite problem. He says, people get on my case for not responding to my phone often enough. It's been an issue with my job since I work remotely now. Yeah, obviously like job and friends are different. I mean, you have a responsibility to your job and employer in a way that you don't to your friends, all right?

Obviously we ought to be more committed to our friends than we are to our employer, but if our employer is paying us a wage, you know, we have a responsibility and we don't wanna shirk that responsibility. So, you know, that's something to consider. Okay, look at Jay, he just said, thank you, I'm taking the leap of faith.

All right, yeah, do it, do it, or, you know, do it if you think you wanna. Again, I'm not trying to, I don't wanna twist anybody's arm. If you're here today, you're like, oh, okay. Don't do it then. Just keep your iPhone. Keep getting the next latest gadget. Let it totally take over your brain.

That's an option for you, you know? But again, there's a link in the description below to these dumb phones called wise phones. They have maps, they have group text, even voice to text and photos. If you use promo code, frad, F-R-A-D-D, they're not paying me to do this, I just asked them if I could give you guys a promo code,

they'll get, you'll get $40 off this phone. All right, you should do it. But I also think there needs to be a level of commitment, because I think what will happen for some of you is you'll go get the Wyze phone, you'll get all excited because the box looks kind of cool, but you'll keep your iPhone in a drawer and then you'll just go back to your iPhone.

I think you should smash your phone. Don't give it to somebody. Don't put that burden upon them. Destroy it and that way you'll have no backup plan and you'll get used to it. That's what I reckon. Cheers. What's this fellow say? What about living like the Amish? Yeah, I kind of want, I think the Amish are totally onto something and I am this close

to becoming Amish. Catholic Amish. Do you find yourself being able to focus better since switching? I have a theory phone addiction significantly contributes to ADHD type symptoms. Yeah, I have. Just like an example I gave last time was I took August off the internet and what I do is I'd wake up, make a coffee,

go sit on my couch and play like a record and just read. And this one day I looked at my wife and I went, oh, hey, good morning, I just memorized a poem. And she said, when did you memorize it? I said, just then. It was pretty cool, like it's not a short poem. And I said, here, hold the book. See if I've got this right.

And there's a few words I had to work on, but like that kind of stuff was really cool. Yeah. My wife wants a dumb phone. How affordable is the Wyse phone? Well, let me tell you this. The money that you'll save in data alone will help you afford this Wyse phone. If you use the promo code, fradd, F-R-A-D-D, they give you 40 bucks off, I

think it's like $370, but then you're essentially using like a dumb phone like whatever that is a month. It's very cheap. And think about all the money you'll save from not buying all the bullcrap Amazon and Google want you to buy. and Google want you to buy. Okay, this is a fair problem. The problem for me is I want music on my phone. That's fine. So that's a fair criticism. So maybe don't get this phone.

Have a smartphone. I did speak to the guy at Wyse Phone and he said they're about to make it so that they'll have a music app. And it sounds like what they're gonna do is, and I don't speak for them, so maybe I've got this wrong, but it sounded like they were saying that they'll make it so that you basically drag MP3s onto this thing.

So you're still very intentional about the music you're consuming. And I like that because, you know, maybe if I, let's say I have to go on a big road trip, it'll be kind of cool. Like, okay, what podcasts do I wanna listen to? I wanna listen to these five, you know? And then maybe I'll drag them, download them to my desktop and then drag them into my phone and I can listen to them that way. I'm still being

very intentional about it. So I like that, but I totally understand. Jacob says, Matt Fradd, this is great content. A lot of my biggest screw ups in life wouldn't have been possible without smartphones. So I can't imagine what life would be like without it. Yeah, well, I tell you, like, if you wanna overcome pornography, this is a great way to do it. It's one way, I mean, it's not the only way, and it's certainly more of a band-aid than anything else,

just to get rid of a computer, but yeah, man. Like, I have no access to technology when I go home. I mean, the internet, that's what I meant. I have no access to the internet at home. So like, let's say I get tempted to look at porn, it's not actually an option for me. So like, that's cool. So if you're out there and you've been complaining

about how hard it is to break free of pornography, and I say to you, where do you often look at pornography? And you say, well, my phone. Yeah, well, this will do it, do you know? Like, as I say, their map feature on Wisephone, they created. So there's no images. It's not like Google Maps where you can type in a restaurant, see all the images, scroll through, click through to a website.

There's nothing like that. But the maps work great. So I had to go to Pittsburgh recently and I was plugging in different addresses and it was fine, you know. It even directs you with voice and stuff like that. So I like that. This is a really great point, mate. He says, phone addiction reminds me of that line from Fight Club.

When the thing you own ends up owning you. And I'll tell you what happens when the thing you own starts owning you. And I'll tell you what happens when the thing you own starts owning you. The first thing you do is become defensive and make excuses. You say no, no, no, that's that's not true. I did I need this, right? This doesn't I can put this down. It's not a problem. It's not that it owned, you know, we've become very defensive. But I think maybe in for many of us again, not all of you, but for some of you, the first step to freedom is just to be like, yeah, bloody well does own me. You're right.

It does. It does. Okay, fine. It does. There's always a good reason to go on my phone. I'm going to get rid of the bastard. Get rid of it. It's one option.

Do what you want. Silvertops says, I completely agree with you, Matt. You're inspiring me to smash my smartphone and replace it with a dumb phone or a wise phone. I'm doing it. Thank you so much for this video. Silver top, I'm just gonna make this random suggestion to you.

If you write to my assistant, her name's Melanie, assistant at mattfrad.com. All right. Prove to her that you're silver top. Let's talk because if you can take a video of yourself smashing your phone, like you say you want to, I'll buy you a wise phone. I don't want to have a hundred people emailing my assistant telling me they're silver top, but there you go.

That's a, that's a promise. If you, and we'll talk about this over email, right? But if you destroy your phone and you videotape it for me, so I see you doing it, I'll buy you a wise phone. But let's talk about it on email before this contract goes into effect, because there's a few other stipulations I'd wanna make. Temptations can do things

you even can't imagine you could do. Can you save PDF files on the Wisephone? No. Hey let me show you a bit more about the Wisephone since I've been talking about it so much. For the 500th time I want to say they don't pay me right now to talk about them. They don't even know that I'm doing a video on them. I don't make any money off the promo code, frad, nothing. That's not why I'm promoting Wisephone. I'm just promoting it because I like it. Techless.com, link in the description below.

Here's what it looks like. Clock, calculator, maps, camera, settings, phone, messages. Scroll down here. Tired of this? Meet the alternative. So these little dots mean messages and phone calls you've missed. That's what they mean. So you pick it up you see that swipe to unlock. Yeah. You know the other thing it's great for is kids like if you've got like a kid and you want them to get a phone get and look at this clean interface with no

third-party tracking. Isn't that nice? Yeah so if you got a kid and they want a phone don't you dare get them an iPhone or or Android like honestly I love you but shame on you if you do that. I mean, it's one thing if you get it and thoroughly lock it down. So it's essentially a dumb phone. But if you give your child a phone and don't log it down, shame on you. Stop it. Stop it now.

It's not okay. Take your kid's phone. Break that first. Yeah. Say, Matt, Fred said they'll love it, But you don't want to do that to your kids. Even if porn didn't exist, my kids wouldn't have smartphones. My beautiful daughter, I love her so much.

Her name's Avila. She's one of my favorite human beings in the world. She makes me laugh in a way that no other human being makes me laugh. And she just started reading the Little House on the Prairie books. And she loves it so much. And she's reading them with a friend.

And her and friends last night Were coming up with a play in someone's backyard a couple of doors down and then they performed it for the parents They wouldn't be doing that if they had smartphones. They'd be worrying about what Instagram filter made this skin look good Slip we got to make violent breaks away from this technological culture like violent breaks even I think Significantly more changes than what I'm suggesting here I think need to happen I'd be checking my phone for dots all day all right you can always get rid of phones altogether you know don't have a phone at all. Anyway, man, I'm gonna leave it at that. Bless you.

I want to let you guys know that I'll be interviewing Father Jason today. He's a Ukrainian Byzantine priest. He's gonna be in studio. We're gonna have some cigars, have a good chat. I'm really looking forward to it. If you're around, feel free to watch. But again, your life would be better if you didn't watch. Just go read a book, go play with your kids.

Don't watch me. Don't watch the crap I constantly push out. Unless you're going to be on YouTube anyway, in which case, yeah, some of these videos would probably be a lot more edifying than cat videos. Okay, maybe not cat videos. Cat videos are pretty edifying, but you know, I'm going to go. Bless you, my friends. Again, click the link in the description below

to go check out Wyze Phone. Use FRADD in the description, F-R-A-D-D, they'll give you $40 off. You'll save a ton of money and your brain will thank you for it. And so will your spouse and children and friends who you will now be paying a lot more attention to. It's been three months off the phone.

I will never, ever go back.