I&#x27;ve rightgraded to a pay-as-you-go dumpphone, and largely go without it.<p>If you don&#x27;t need to be constantly reachable, a phone isn&#x27;t a necessity.<p>The biggest single pain point is for information while moving.  A device with wireless capability, a map, and transit information would be handy.  It also removes virtually all distraction modalities.<p>There are a few factors underlying this trend not adequately mentioned in the article:<p>1. Phones suck.  They suck as phones:  poor voice&#x2F;call quality, spotty coverage, poor coverage indoors, poor battery life, poor messaging capabilities.<p>2. Phoning sucks.  Yes, there are times when direct voice comms is useful.  I spent a couple of hours in a productive international video call courtesy of Google Hangouts last week -- one of my few significant voice comms in months.  But the lack of text-transcribing, syncronous nature (we&#x27;d set up the call days in advance), likelihood of interruptions, and failure of virtually all devices to offer blacklist &#x2F; whitelist or meaningful quiet-hours capability are all horrible.<p>3. Devices suck.  Even smartphones lack many capabilities I&#x27;d consider essential (several listed above).  The near-commodity nature of feature phones means that capabilities and interfaces are horrible.  I&#x27;d be willing to pay a <i>slight</i> premium for durability, a decent set of basic ringtones (melodies suck), and some sort of voice messaging system of my own choice.<p>4. Privacy.  Celebrity (and non-celebrity) nudes, voicemail hacking, messaging &#x2F; email hacking, and absolutely ubiquitous advertising-based and, increasingly, governmental tracking are all massive turn-offs.  If I don&#x27;t need a pocket spy, I won&#x27;t carry one.<p>Caveat to much of this:  I&#x27;ve got a tablet.  It&#x27;s WiFi only, and 10&#x27;.  This means it doesn&#x27;t fit in a pocket, and isn&#x27;t online when I&#x27;m travelling, but is often usable at stops (public WiFi is surprisingly prevalent, though yes, that too presents problems).  With onboard storage, I&#x27;ve got vast amounts of stored information which I can (and do) access.  With a bluetooth keyboard it&#x27;s close to a laptop replacement (though I&#x27;d prefer a more capable OS and set of apps).<p>For road trips, it&#x27;s quite useful:  parked when not needed (or feeding to my car&#x27;s sound system), pulled out at rest stops to check routes and hotels (I still rely on, and know how to use, paper maps).  But it avoids many of the negatives of a cellphone.<p>Device identity is of course random strings and principle account is rarely if ever used.