Call me a Philistine but it is hard to actually imagine myself giving up the ability to play chess on my long commutes.

However, I certainly admire these people.

He hasn’t forsaken the internet entirely however: Briones helps moderate a Reddit forum devoted to so-called dumbphones, which had 17,000 thousand “enthusiasts” as members as of Monday.

“People who want to regain their time and attention, and have a deeper more purposeful life, I think that is who this message is resonating with,” Briones told AFP.

Dumbphones, also referred to as feature phones, are essentially throw-back handsets without big screens and a mountain of apps.

They are reminiscent of the pre-iPhone era when mobile phones allowed users to call another line, an astounding breakthrough made when the first mobile phone call was dialed on April 3, 1973 — 50 years ago.

I can imagine myself only doing something like this if I lived in the US and was driving everywhere, or showing up at that place and being engaged... I Guess I can also imagine doing this if I were to absolutely normalize reading on my commute in the very old fashioned style: with a physical book.