The hottest thing a person can do is downgrade their tech

“Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to have the latest smartphone” is not the quote. Because literally no kid wants that. Maybe the idea of a shiny new thing, a glimpse of the future, sure. But no happy childhood was captured on 4K, rather, it was spent colouring in on paper with crayons. 

Touching grass has become a luxury. Digital detoxes are the contemporary celebrity diet. As far back as 2019, Frank Ocean of Nostalgia, Ultra fame spent his Met Gala snapping pictures on a Contax T3 point-and-shoot produced in the years 2001 - 2005, and we all lost our minds over it. While that camera is fantastic, this wasn’t the point. The point was an embrace of something good, not something new. Quality, not recency.

In other celebrity realms, both Michael Cera and Sarah Jessica Parker avoid smartphones altogether, while Elton John has previously advocated for shutting down the internet. Sure, the internet is still standing, but we wouldn’t really mind if it fell for a bit.  

Celebrities, of course, don’t have to function in the real world. By paradox, though, this seems to make it easier for them to not spend eight hours a day using tech. You could argue it is us normies who have lost our way, who have found ourselves living behind screens.

In a fight against that the world has become more and more retrosexual: the hottest thing a person can do is downgrade their tech. And we don’t mean downgrade in the negative sense. Less can be more. Enjoying what you have can be a zen practice. We have a couple of ways to put this joyful mindset into practice. Here’s how to resist the upgrade… 

Just keep your current phone

Life can be so simple sometimes. Does your phone work well enough? Yes. Will that ‘action button’ get you snogs? No. Will your life really, really, feel like it's over if you stick with the perfectly fine phone in your hand right now, dutifully presenting this article to you, for a few months, and then another few months, and then another few months? Why not find out… I suspect you may even find you had a little more disposable income and a little less screentime.

Spend on yourself, not on societal expectation 

So, you saved up for the latest release and have now decided you don’t really need to drop a grand when you can just replace the battery instead? Very good. You have fun coupons you didn’t think you would have. You can use these… on anything else! Buy a retro games console, a watch that stops you pulling your phone out of your pocket every five minutes, a holiday, or binoculars for birdwatching. All of it is so much more romantic than unnecessarily spending money on an object you often resent having to use so much.

Get the idea? Good. Now, if your phone is on the ropes, you may be wondering how you go about bringing it back to health.

Local repair communities

Imagine if you could reduce loneliness, screentime, and fix your phone all at the same time? Well, the future is here. Local repair communities have taken off in recent years: whether you want to sew the buttons back on your trousers or replace a cracked screen, you may find a cafe or social space nearby has the facilities to help you do this, for free, and as a social event. Dreamy! There’s even entire Right to Repair movements out there you can become part of.

Device maintenance

As with houseplants, LPs, and fancy clothing, taking care of your phone will make it last longer. Read the label, do a little studying, consult our own guides to maintenance. It can be annoying, doing things the way we are told to (I remember a housemate once fed its houseplant diet coke because that was all he had in the room), but generally, this advice has been given for a reason and will keep your gadgets going for longer. Prevention is better than a cure, as they say.

Buy refurbished

If your phone has truly passed on, then fair enough. You may need a new one. But new doesn’t have to mean the newest. There are always second-hand, refurbished options; you can get the same model as now, or even a slightly earlier one. Generally, smartphone upgrades are so incremental, you only really notice differences every few models. Plus, the sexiest thing about it all of course, is that refurbished tech is far kinder on the planet, reducing e-waste by as much as 89%. A win-win!