2023 - Quitting the Smartphone

Fred said:
Sometimes it's interesting to look at misunderstandings. In a thread about not using smartphones, I ask a slightly off topic question about not using any phone number, misinterpret the responses as being from other people who don't use any phone numbers, and have all of my posts misinterpreted as if I want to avoid a cell phone not all phones.

For context I have been trying to find a way to avoid giving out phone numbers to banks and credit card companies for years as it is a major security issue, a privacy issue, and a financial risk. After certainly dozens of hours of effort, I've found one credit card company and one bank that are acceptable and don't need a phone. Vanguard/Fidelity/backup credit card I've had no luck with. Any rumor of a way to operate these without a phone needs to be investigated.

You posted this:

I responded asking this:

Admittedly, I go slightly off topic from "no cell phone" to "no phone" but 1. I don't think I know anyone under 60 with a landline, except perhaps now CZfool68, and 2. land lines often can't be used for banking anyway, at least in my experience, because they can't be texted/don't support SMS. So I assume that no cell phone means no phone, and this seems like a reasonable question either way. I have done considerable work to avoid giving out cell phones, it sounds like you do the same, maybe you've found financial places that work. This is great!

You say this. If you regularly access financial websites with only a computer and no phone, that's incredibly unusual(I've used the two largest and two smaller brokerages all of which required a real, valid phone number to create an account and login, and almost always for every subsequent login, at least for me).

So I respond with this(yes, sign up involves login and using a real phone). Looking for the company that isn't part of that vast majority. Not sure how you could be unaware of this. I think you overlooked that the previous post said "without a phone" rather than "without a cell phone".

I make a comment regarding doing financial services without a phone number, you respond that you... use a (landline) phone number. Doesn't help.

In response to the same comment, CZFool68 suggests fake phone numbers, I explain why that hasn't worked for me in a comment I won't quote.

If CZFool68 has found a place that lets him use fake phone numbers(and apparently doesn't require a real one to log in), that's excellent, I need to find out what it is and join, so I ask what he uses. I don't think I'd actually seen your post above yet.
At this point CZFool68 points out that he doesn't use financial websites(which explains why he thinks they can be accessed without a valid, in the hand phone number), and expresses unrelated doubts about the health effects of RF. I didn't ask for the pros of landlines-


Then, quoting my post saying "without a phone number", not "without a cell phone", he says "get a land line". I've also seen your post saying "I use a lane line". Since my several posts that consistently were about "how to not use any phone" have now been consistently responded to with "get a landline" and long health and privacy based arguments for doing so...

I quote CZFool68s post and explain why I don't want a landline. I (still) don't want any phone tied to important accounts.

Average Joe quotes me saying the above. CZFool68 1. Didn't give any useful advice for making financial transactions without an active phone number, which was what I asked about, and 2. Has now made multiple posts about health and privacy benefits of landlines.

If I say "I don't want a Ford" and CZFool68 responds multiple times telling me how F150s are the most powerful, reliable Fords, it would sound to me like he's promoting Fords, which would be similarly unhelpful.
I don't understand Average Joe's perspective here. CZFool68 is definitely promoting landlines in response to a post about not wanting to use phones at all. Which doesn't help. So I say so.

And here we are.
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I think your solution is to just keep buying NFA items, gear and trucks and you’ll have no need for all this high tech banking. Just take whatever remains of your cash and insert under mattress that is heavily protected by NFA items and gear. 😀

Problem solved. Screw the banks.
 
Fred said:
Sometimes it's interesting to look at misunderstandings. In a thread about not using smartphones, I ask a slightly off topic question about not using any phone number, misinterpret the responses as being from other people who don't use any phone numbers, and have all of my posts misinterpreted as if I want to avoid a cell phone not all phones.

For context I have been trying to find a way to avoid giving out phone numbers to banks and credit card companies for years as it is a major security issue, a privacy issue, and a financial risk. After certainly dozens of hours of effort, I've found one credit card company and one bank that are acceptable and don't need a phone. Vanguard/Fidelity/backup credit card I've had no luck with. Any rumor of a way to operate these without a phone needs to be investigated.

You posted this:

I responded asking this:

Admittedly, I go slightly off topic from "no cell phone" to "no phone" but 1. I don't think I know anyone under 60 with a landline, except perhaps now CZfool68, and 2. land lines often can't be used for banking anyway, at least in my experience, because they can't be texted/don't support SMS. So I assume that no cell phone means no phone, and this seems like a reasonable question either way. I have done considerable work to avoid giving out cell phones, it sounds like you do the same, maybe you've found financial places that work. This is great!

You say this. If you regularly access financial websites with only a computer and no phone, that's incredibly unusual(I've used the two largest and two smaller brokerages all of which required a real, valid phone number to create an account and login, and almost always for every subsequent login, at least for me).

So I respond with this(yes, sign up involves login and using a real phone). Looking for the company that isn't part of that vast majority. Not sure how you could be unaware of this. I think you overlooked that the previous post said "without a phone" rather than "without a cell phone".

I make a comment regarding doing financial services without a phone number, you respond that you... use a (landline) phone number. Doesn't help.

In response to the same comment, CZFool68 suggests fake phone numbers, I explain why that hasn't worked for me in a comment I won't quote.

If CZFool68 has found a place that lets him use fake phone numbers(and apparently doesn't require a real one to log in), that's excellent, I need to find out what it is and join, so I ask what he uses. I don't think I'd actually seen your post above yet.
At this point CZFool68 points out that he doesn't use financial websites(which explains why he thinks they can be accessed without a valid, in the hand phone number), and expresses unrelated doubts about the health effects of RF. I didn't ask for the pros of landlines-


Then, quoting my post saying "without a phone number", not "without a cell phone", he says "get a land line". I've also seen your post saying "I use a lane line". Since my several posts that consistently were about "how to not use any phone" have now been consistently responded to with "get a landline" and long health and privacy based arguments for doing so...

I quote CZFool68s post and explain why I don't want a landline. I (still) don't want any phone tied to important accounts.

Average Joe quotes me saying the above. CZFool68 1. Didn't give any useful advice for making financial transactions without an active phone number, which was what I asked about, and 2. Has now made multiple posts about health and privacy benefits of landlines.

If I say "I don't want a Ford" and CZFool68 responds multiple times telling me how F150s are the most powerful, reliable Fords, it would sound to me like he's promoting Fords, which would be similarly unhelpful.
I don't understand Average Joe's perspective here. CZFool68 is definitely promoting landlines in response to a post about not wanting to use phones at all. Which doesn't help. So I say so.

And here we are.
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I really don't have the time or inclination to interact with this since it isn't a Friday.

The only advice I can give you is maybe you would be better served by starting a new thread.
 
Fred said:
That is the classic "I have no answer" response.

In any event, it has finally become clear that noone in the thread has any useful information about what I wanted to know about, and clearly several people including myself lack reading comprehension to various degrees, so I think we're done.
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I think you can use google voice, at least that’s what a quick google search gives me. But that may or may not be anymore secure than a regular cell phone. You can at least control who else has the number besides the banks
But if your actual goal is to have no phone number attached at all it may be worth stopping by an actual branch somewhere
 
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Well
Screen time is up this week. Prices on a flight I was planning on buying have doubled while I planned on picking it up yesterday so I've been scrambling to figure something out.
been in the 5-6 hr neighborhood so far.
 
A Doctoral program friend revealed research on small screens. They cause the brain to hyper focus and are better for brainwashing. They also have addiction issues for users.
Screens are way overused so quitting is good, if one can. Most cant
R
 
I'm down to like 2-3 hours a week nowadays from 5-7. I think ideally I get it under 2. I don't want to be so unavailable because of self imposed downtime that those important can't get a hold of me.
A couple things that I found really helped (iphone):
- setting a sleep downtime for 30 mins before bed and roughly 2 hours after I wake up (morning has been more important IMO, if I start the day off not checking my phone I usually do better throughout the day)
- having limits on certain apps ( I set to 1 hr/day but often ignore to my own detriment)
- I still pick up my phone nearly as often, but think rather than to scroll or open apps if I have no notifications, I just close the phone and put it back down.
- having push notifications turned off except for certain people (close friends/family) and have my notifications that would normally push come through at lunch and after work.
 
I got off of FaceHONK, InstaSCAM and the like (never did twitter). That deleted a lot of bs.

This and one other blog is my social media (NCGO).

About 10 minutes a day does it
 
Fred said:
You can do that, but only for unimportant things, because the financial services will want to send you worthless text or voice confirmation codes that you will need to log on. If you try to turn this off in the settings, you either can't, or they keep doing it anyway.

These never add meaningful security, often make the account much less secure, and obviously lock you out of your account when the phone is lost or broken or your number changes.
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Most financial companies will let you have more than one email and phone number for MFA. I use one email only for these accounts inbound only never used to send.
 
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Chuckman said:
I absolutely agree most of us need a reduction in screen time, but I don't know how many of us can give it up given how much for-real work we do on phones and devices.
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This place has been my problem since I retired.
So many subjects and good comments, then there are the rabbit holes I chase from some of these threads.
 
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