6 single-use devices i use every day to reduce screentime

and the price we pay for convenience

i think i’d like a little bit of friction in my everyday life again. i’d like a little bit of a challenge, a small accomplishment here and there, a tiny bit of a hill i have to climb over every now and then, something to work the muscle, fire a synapse or two. i think i’d like it if things were just a little less convenient.

doesn’t waiting a little bit longer for a dish to arrive at a restaurant make the food taste just a little bit better? letting the teabag settle into its piping hot bath of freshly boiled water for just a minute or two longer gives those fragrances and flavours a little extra room to stretch and intensify. sometimes taking the scenic route home, although a little longer, gives us a little reminder of how lucky we are to be alive.

making things more convenient isn’t a crime. i’d rather not go down to the creek with a rock and a washboard. i appreciate the cordless phone. honestly, i’d rather not wash my dishes by hand. but do i need one device that does absolutely everything for me, to the point where i feel like i can’t leave a room without it or sit in a mundane moment without it or even fall asleep at night without it? probably not.

convenience has permeated almost all aspects of our lives. we’ve lost the art of struggle, of challenge, of the ability to say i don’t know anything about that. conversations are violently halted by the ubiquitous google it! and now we don’t even have to type with our fingers anymore, we can just ask gemini. at some point, i think gemini will just start interrupting conversations at the dinner table to correct you on the origin of stainless steel cutlery.

where does love blossom if not in the awkward moments, in the spaces where optimisation and algorithms do not feature. where does joy come from if not in the places where accuracy and uniformity do not matter. where does our appreciation for life and the people around us grow if not in the subtle human moments of a smile from a stranger, a favour from a friend, in the effort we put in to do a nice thing for our neighbour. with friction, with effort, with challenge comes growth. if everything becomes as easy as a click of a button, how will we learn to grow?

so, in order to find those little moments of growth again, i’ve collected a few single-use devices that i use almost every day to help me feel a little more grounded and connected to all of my interests, respectively.

enjoying this post so far? subscribe today to get weekly posts just like this to your inbox. and if you become a paid subscriber, you’ll get access to subscriber-only posts and the seasonal quiet list zine (she’s v cute). thank you!

something to read on - e-reader (boox go 6)

this is the device i use to do all my reading, whether it’s substack articles, online magazines and publications or ebooks. i could do this on my phone, but something about sitting on my phone all day, even if i am doing something productive, feels wrong to me. i feel like i’m missing out on a better experience, whether that’s the physical experience of holding a book or simply having a bigger screen. i feel like i’m missing out on the variety of life. a swiss army knife may be better than carrying a host of tools in a toolbox, but i don’t think our phones need to do all that.

i love the delay of an e-ink screen. i love how it forces me to slow down and recognise how impatient i have become over the years. i love using it to write! i love how it gives me a distraction-free, greyscale, slow space to put my thoughts on the (e-ink) page. and because it’s not as responsive as a laptop or a phone, i focus on the words rather than editing and rewriting. i save those things for my laptop. i’m hoping to finally finish a short story draft on this device.

something to play on - nintendo 2ds xl

i spoke a little bit about this and inner child consumerism in this essay, and i still have no regrets. i haven’t picked it up as much recently (seasonal affective disorder is in full force this year), but i love this thing so much. a big part of why i love it so much is definitely because of how i have personalised it, but i also love having one device just for gaming and nothing else.

i love the lack of ads, of pay-to-play features, of distractions. when i open up this little device, i know exactly what i’m getting. i love the tactility of it, how it fits perfectly in my hands, and every time i look at it, it brings me joy.

something to listen to music on - mp3 player (duoquin f22 pro)

as if overnight, i became hyperaware of the fact that everyone’s phone, no matter the brand, looks exactly the same—a giant, buttonless rectangle. i wanted something different, quickly, and luckily stumbled across a youtube video that instantly sold me.

although i’ve recently switched back to my smartphone for a while, this phone taught me a lot, especially when it comes to communication. i’m working on an essay about the lost art of being offline because i didn’t always feel like using that physical number keypad to reply to messages, which meant i left replying to my friends for my tablet at the end of the day. this reminded me of the days when we used to do a similar thing with msn and facebook when we were teens. more on that next week!

i still want to find a use for this phone, however, so i’m thinking about making it my mp3 player for when i’m not using it as my main phone. i haven’t had a spotify account in months, and listening to music on this was blissful—no ads, no algorithms, no wi-fi needed.

something to keep notes with - commonplace book

this tiny book is my growing collection of things that pique my interest, quotes from books, authors and thinkers that i want to immortalise, words i want to commit to memory and more. the act of writing definitions down with a pen helps me to retain them better. writing passages from books gives me time to sit with the sentences i’m inking to the page, an extra moment in the mind of the author or thinker.

i flick through these pages often and test myself to see if i remember definitions of words, reread quotes and find another spark of inspiration and notice patterns in the things that capture my attention. it’s like having a physical version of the part of my brain that admires beauty and words and all the things that make up the uniqueness that is being me.

something to find new words with - oxford 2 in 1 dictionary and thesaurus

before writing definitions down in my commonplace book, i grab my dictionary which is always within arm’s reach to flick through the pages of this chunky little book. every time i pick it up i feel like a kid again, transported back to the days when there was no other way to find the meaning of a word.

this process of looking up a word is so much more interesting and practical than just typing it into google. (and sometimes being met with the synopsis of a film instead of a definition is a significant pet peeve of mine.) i’ve also started to highlight the words i’ve looked up so, eventually, i can easily spot words i’ve previously looked up or notice if i look up a word more than once. (it’s the little things, you know?)

something to yap to - stream-of-consciousness journal

this journal is a lifesaver. this is the one place i can say exactly what i want with no judgement at all. no one, not my family or my partner, is allowed to touch this journal or even know it exists. if you don’t have somewhere to write every ugly thought, every angry, emotional, nonsensical, illogical thought, then i’d highly recommend finding one.

if you find you have racing thoughts, things you want to say but feel like you can’t, take them to the page. the page won’t judge you, won’t cancel you, won’t look at you sideways. the tiny part of me that wears a tinfoil hat doesn’t completely trust that my thoughts are for my eyes only on any piece of technology. maybe the notepad on your laptop is safe, but anything that requires a wi-fi connection? it’s a no from me. pen and paper will always be a safe space.

(most of) these items always sit in a stack on our coffee table so they are close by and easy to reach. these little extra steps between having a desire and finding a solution, i believe, will give me more moments to take my time. our world is very concerned with optimisation and finding the answers as quickly as possible, but i’m not too interested in all that. what’s the rush?

---

hello quiet readers, i hope you’ve been having a lovely week and that you enjoyed this week’s post. what do you think about the cost of convenience? will there be a point where we’ve gone too far? have we already crossed that line? personally, i think the ride is going a little too fast for me and i’m trying to find a way off. and part of that meant packing up and moving to a different part of the country altogether!

tell me about your single-use devices or the ones you’re thinking about getting. i’d love to hear about them.

and if you missed it, here is last week’s post, the first ever quiet list zine!

thank you again for reading, i’ll see you next week <3