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25 Apr 2025 - A Ramble About Smartphones

Okay, so first off, you can take everything I say for a grain of salt because I don't even have a smartphone. Also this is mostly talking about iPhones because my parents have been using them for as long as I can remember atp. WARNING: THIS IS EXTREMELY LONG

I really, really, hate our dependency on smartphones. Not smartphones themselves, but the fact that we can't go without them in our day-to-day lives. I'm not a fan of them, even though I need one. My parents still don't allow me to have one even though I've just turned 16, I don't have one. Also, I'm writing this in my free period to a student behind me arguing with two teachers over phone usage.

They're evolving back into bricks
Boy, can you imagine my disappointment when Apple announced that they were discontinuing the iPhone mini series. Americans just want bigger and bigger smartphones, and the reasoning behind that is beyond me. Big and heavy? So much for convenience.

Maybe it's just a me problem because of the clothes I wear, but just having one in my pocket throws me off immediately. You might as well put a Nokia brick there instead, and it's especially disorienting if it's in a left or right pocket. It really throws off my center of gravity, and I can't stand it. I've tried running with a phone in my pocket before, and it's never turned out well.

Also, they just keep getting bigger and bigger. It amuses me, to watch a woman shove a comically large phone into the ridiculously small back pocket of her skinny jeans. I know womens' clothes aren't exactly known for having pockets, and to me it is all the more reason to get a smaller phone.

They're also extremely uncomfortable for me to hold. The iPhone 16 Pro Max and Galaxy S24 for example, are literally bigger than my hand. Seven fucking inches. I would have to hold it with two hands to be able to use it at all. It's ridiculous. Not to mention trying to carry it around. I just can't fathom it. How am I supposed to play Pokemon Go with one hand now?

I'm team old school (and broke)
All the phones in our house have a home button. My parents have always slept on iPhones. Until they removed the home button. We've never had an iPhone later than the SE or 8. And I don't think my parents have used an Android since they got iPhones back in the early 2010s. They're still a big too big for my liking, but it's about as good as it gets.

Also, not to mention, the technology in my house is not exactly up-to-date with technology. We only just upgraded from a ~5' 2009 Sony Bravia about 2 years ago. I think that thing cost like $2k when my parents bought it. And after I built my first computer (see links page) with pretty modest specs like a 5600X, I somehow have the most powerful PC in the house. We're not poor, we just don't upgrade often. Before, I played ROBLOX on an HP Envy from 2013.

I remember a couple years back, my mom's job gave her an iPhone XR (which was released almost 7 years ago...) specifically for work related purposes. I snuck on it and the first thing that occured to me, besides the lack of home button, was how large and bulky it was, and I think that's where my dislike for modern phones started. I still can't get used to phones without a home button, even though they first appeared when I was 9. They have to have a home button of some sorts, Apple or not, for it to feel like a phone.

The size of the smaller, older phones are just right to me. I'm used to it. The iPhone 4 is about 4.5 inches tall, which just feels absolutely perfect. Source: My mom used an iPhone 4 for like 5 years. It's so small, I love it. Portable. I could probably go on about this all day. But enough said, let's move on.

I hate consumerism
According to a quick Google search, Americans upgrade their phone every 2-3 years.

Let me give you a point of reference. My dad got an iPhone 8 for his birthday back in 2017, when I was in SECOND GRADE. I used it to play Pokemon Go and ROBLOX a few months ago. It gets hot pretty quickly and has shit battery life, but otherwise it runs pretty damn well for an 8 year old phone! And I'm in 10th grade now.

Also there's an iPhone 6 lying around the house that I'd love to use but it can't last more than 5 minutes without a charger. The battery is baked. The camera lens is cracked. But it still works! I turned it on for the first time in 2 years after having lost it for a while, and discord was installed so I opened it up to check it out. It still has a version from 2022/23. Man, I almost forgot what the old layout was like. I don't even use Discord on mobile anymore so I don't know how much more the layout has changed but from what I heard it's not going well. (Note to self: Add screenshot here later)

Point is, you don't have to upgrade your phone so much. It's just a waste. I don't really have an ideal phone, and I'm current limited to an iPhone SE 2 with okayish battery life, but when I get one that has all the features I want, I'm gonna stick with it as long as I can. Fuck e-waste. Fuck consumerism.

My "ideal phone" doesn't exist
What would my ideal phone look like?

And guess what? I can't really find one that exists that isn't too big or bulky. That's my biggest dealbreaker; my #1 constraint. I love small phones, but there's always something that I'm not willing to compromise on (looking at you Unihertz). I asked AI. Suggested iPhone SE again. What now?

NEVERMIND I forgot Unihertz also sells other smartphones. Now I'm looking at the Jelly Series and the Tank Mini. But the camera is ass. So I have more digging to do.

What about the Xperia X/Z series? They look pretty promising, but I'm not too sure about the kind of operating system I can install on it (This is a note to myself to check this out later).

There's also the iPhone 12/13 Mini. They're the smallest, smartest small smartphones I can find so far (even smaller than the SE!), and are pretty reputable already. While they do look pretty appealing, they don't have a means of fingerprinting/touch ID which is another major dealbreaker. I feel like neither face ID or entering the passcode manually are secure means, with fingerprint ID being the only truly "secure" method of authentication. So yeah, it checks every single box, except for that. Also, they're still pretty expensive. But if I can't find anything else, I might turn back to this one.

I totally didn't forget to include the obvious, the iPhone SE/8. Obviously, these are pretty good overall. Size is the only dealbreaker here. I've used these phones for a long time, basically for as long as I can remember at this point, so again it's one of my final options.

Thus the iPhone SE and 13 Mini are my main contenders. I know, as a somewhat tech guy, the Apple ecosystem is frowned upon a lot but I honestly don't see many problems with it. That doesn't mean I haven't taken other

I doubt there's a smartphone out there that checks all of these boxes, so in the meantime, I have to keep searching. Realistically, at the moment the SE and 13 Mini are the only good options out there. Maybe, one day there will be a way to better customize a phone (just like a PC), it's just ridiculous how little you can customize them relative to how much we use them.

And it's sad how few choices you have these days. If you search up something like "biggest internet service providers" or "major mobile operating systems" over the years you just see it getting less and less "diverse." So much for a free market offering freedom of choice. I could write an entire seperate post about why I love small phones, or about how freedom of choice and customization/personalization on the internet is declining. But onwards. There's something else important I can't leave out.

The elephant in the room: Social Media
Yeah, let me make this clear again. I have ADHD. Which means I have zero impulse control. Or awareness of time. Install some SFVC app like TikTok or Reels and you're basically giving me poison.

I saw my 11 year old sister become a victim to this herself. My mom gave me the "family phone" (iPhone SE Gen 2) and the first thing I noticed since the last time I had used it was that the wallpaper had changed and someone had downloaded about 6 new social media apps + Block Blast. I looked through all the social medias, and my sister had made a Tiktok, Instagram, and Snapchat account. What really scares me is that when I opened snapchat, it said that my location was being shared with 59 people. (what the fuck?) And I scrolled through her tiktok, and there were hundreds of videos she had reposted which I think is enough to indicate the amount of time she'd spent on that account. I don't know for sure but it was definitely at least 100 hours of just brainrotscrolling. But enough. I have more to say.

I could probably, again, go off on an entire separate rant about this so I’m gonna try and shorten it to no avail. Despite being chronically online I dont use a lot of social media, at least the most mainstream ones. If you search up “most popular social media platforms” it shows the top 10-15 or so. I don’t use a single one of them, except for YouTube (which I use almost exclusively for music and posting my own videos). Discord, Pixilart and Reddit are my go-to. Discord is for 95% gaming, no joke so yeah that should give you an idea of how much of an epic gamer I am 😎 (this is greatly exaggerated) Pixilart I’ve explained in my “History on the Internet” post, and Reddit because gaming (again) and I just like the platform in general and stuff. I’ve been using all of these platforms for a long time now (4+ years) and I feel like I’ve known them too well at this point to adopt a new, main social media platform like Insta or TikTok.

Oh boy and I got off track anyway. But my point is, as an acutely self-aware loser shut-in, I don’t want to sign up for a new social media. They’re very popular for a reason, and their addictive design is even more so than ever. The FOMO is also another valid reason as to why I would sign up because I would need outside communication with classmates and friends IRL except I don’t have any 😔 My point is, it’s just not worth it. There’s no real point. I see all my classmates and family with their phones nailed to their hands and eyes glued to the screen and I dont want to become one of them. The convenient access to dopamine is what makes them so addictive. As my mom once said, “Those who can control the phone and not let the phone control them are the real winners of society.”

Last part of this bit incoming I swear. I get addicted to things so easily it genuinely scares me. Dunno if this is an ADHD thing or not. Oh well. At least Im aware of it. Although more recently sometimes I waste my time on the few socials I have because I’m tired and can’t be productive and haven’t yet realized I actually need to take a nap. Once I spent 3+ hours straight wasting away browsing Reddit. And I just realized, shit, I could’ve used all that time taking a nap and waking up feeling refreshed and making myself useful. Time is the most precious commodity in this world, and social media on a phone is the fastest, easiest way to waste it because big corporations want your money.