Life Without A Smartphone

by Marie T. Sullivan | February 20, 2026

I am bereft.

Opening the mail early in the year 2026, I find a crisp letter from AT&T informing me that my landline will soon disappear. Copper wiring is obsolete, they tell me, while cheerfully offering to sell me alternative products and services.

For most of my life I had relied solely on a landline, which anchored me to an easy chair from which a caller invariably had my full attention. Never was I driving, cooking, shopping or bathing while conversing.

A few years back, friends and family insisted that I acquire a phone for the car, just in case. To their unanimous disdain I purchased a flip phone designed for seniors. It’s a marvel. It has excellent reception and is simple to use. It’s red, so I can find it in my purse. I use it to talk to people. I do not text, with rare exceptions, like receiving those annoying little access codes from the bank. It costs $28.53 per month.

Some time back I read of a trend. Certain CEOs, genuine captains of industry, were shedding their smartphones and returning to flip phones, to save time. For those who can do so, I recommend it.

I am not alone. Recently I spoke with two friends, both men, who largely eschew personal tech. They prefer reality. “Phones have taken over people’s lives,” says Friend #1. “I have a smartphone—I was pressured in to it—but it doesn’t leave the house. I have no idea how to operate it. I just talk to people on it, using it like a landline.” He is even clandestine: “I tell no one it’s a smartphone. They would start texting me.”

Friend #2 goes farther. He is younger and in construction, with his own business. He and his wife have eight children. “This stuff is ruining us as human beings,” he says. “People are losing the ability to interact with other people. They’re becoming blue-screen dopamine fiends.” His oldest kids now have phones, but with strict boundaries. What about his business? I ask. “At first my clients are surprised I use only a flip phone and don’t text. I just laugh. Later, when I finish a job ahead of time, they ask “How did you get it done so fast?” I tell them, “By not wasting time checking a phone every five minutes.”

One Thanksgiving, he reports, he and his wife and all eight kids got stuck in their van in Pennsylvania in a massive snowstorm at night. They were so immobilized and in so remote an area that they were actually preparing to spend the night in the van. There was a home nearby, owned by a Mennonite family also with eight kids. The father knocked on the van window and insisted that they come in the house and spend the night. A second stranded family was also invited in. “Pretty soon there were twenty-four children sitting on the floor in a circle, talking and laughing the way kids used to do. None of them owned phones. It was beautiful to see.” The Mennonite family had only a landline.

Here’s a secret. The human voice is full of information, emotion, and subtleties of speech that convey a great deal. When you and I speak by phone, I can hear if you’re taut or relaxed, genuine or pretentious. To some degree I can discern your age and level of maturity and education. In a job I held long before cell phones entered our lives, I had on occasion to make a few cold calls. In preparation, I would call my target at 10:00 pm the night before to hear their outgoing voice mail message and learn something about them. Young or old? Happy, sad, stressed? It was useful information. Such is the concept behind the legal practice known as voir dire (see/hear, also translated as “to speak the truth”).  An attorney interrogating you for jury selection can learn a great deal about you in seconds, just by seeing you and hearing you speak. Messages on a screen deliver no such insights. “You lose the fragrance of the human voice,” says Friend #2.  He waxes poetic. “Texting is like flowers with no fragrance.”

It also allows adult children to text “Happy Birthday, Dad” and not go see him.

Don’t get me wrong. Texting is wonderfully useful and convenient, so I’m told. I believe it. But we err in overusing it. We need more human contact.

A young woman I know works for a major state university in Chicago. She describes many students there as “zombies,” walking alone on campus, bent over their phones, speaking to no one, thoroughly atomized.

The harms inflicted on younger children by excessive phone use are so well documented I won’t raise them here. I’m happy to see, though, that manufacturers have now developed “Tin Can” cell phones for kids, the equivalent to a walkie-talkie, no doubt in response to parental concerns. No apps, no texting, no games. For more mature audiences, i.e. us nostalgic Boomers, they’ve come up with corded phones designed to resemble the phones of our youth, to be used as landlines but somehow bypassing the obsolete copper wiring. They recall to my mind the Princess Phone, a sleek instrument that was in the bedroom of every female teen from a well-to-do household in the ‘Sixties, to talk to their best friend on at great length.

“You don’t have a smartphone?” people ask incredulously. “I wish I could do that!” Not everyone can, but it’s lovely to be free of the TMT syndrome: Too Much Technology and the needless complication of the times in which we live.

 

-30-

An Ohio native, Marie T. (Terry) Sullivan has lived in Chicagoland for all of her adult life. Her background is in music. For two years she served as culture editor for the now defunct Chicago Daily Observer.

Comments 32

  1. Thanks again for a great article. The technology has changed us. Nature however gives us glimpses of what we lost. Ex: fewer unplanned exchanges for our kids playing with whom ever shows up. Smaller schedules. There is a positive side to “snow days”.

  2. Good points. Smart phones are definitely a double edged sword. For all the downsides, unfortunately I wouldn’t be reading John Kass News or listening to The Chicago Way without my smartphone.

  3. John, Social Media and AI are taking over the World. I got rid of my Land Line a few years ago that I loved. Lent starts tomorrow and the Lord is Coming so i do not care about Woke or a Land Line or Social Media or people that gossip. Christ is the most important person in our lives and our families.

  5. To my wife and I, a cell phone is overpriced toy that is a pain in the butt. We both have one, usually do not text, and I don’t play games on it (my wife plays Text Twist, a word game on hers). It is never on when we are home and the land line always works and doesn’t have to charged. People do not run their lives anymore – their lives are ruled by the cell phone and strangers. People have surrounded their independence to their cell phone and marketeers.

  6. Tech has both hastened the demise of our nation, and is aiding in the exposure of the international spy/blackmail/ money laundering/ sexual exploitation ring that essentially rules over all of us.

    9/11 was an inside job. There are too many inconsistencies.

    Maxwell is not in club fed for no reason.
    Howard Lutnick is Trump’s handler.
    FBI and CIA do not work for us, or our own government, it appears. They run interference for the oligarchs.

    Oh, and Israel harbors pedophiles too. Nice people in that government.

    Charlie Kirk is credited with swaying the election, along with other younger podcasters. He started asking the wrong questions. Notice how most of them are keeping their mouths shut after what happened to Mr. Kirk.

    Tucker Qatarlson has exposed many of the lies. I wonder when an “accident” will befall him?

    Money is their God. They have false idols, snd we are merely chattel. They’ll use race, religion, gender, anything to divide us. It’s one thing the pinheads on both left and right can’t see. It’s all an op. These political parties are for show.

    Tech is being used to control us, but they’ve not Ben able to get their arms around it as truth sometimes leaks out by mistake.

    Get a flip phone, I agree. It’s better not knowing that all of these horrible things are being perpetrated on us.

    Nothing we can do about it anyway.

  8. Agreed. Until very recently. I relied upon my wee flip phone as my means to communicate with family and the outside world. For years I was always lectured by family and the outside world of the necessity and marvels of the I-phone and the multitude of tasks that I could perform with it. However, I was part of the “resistance” like my fellow dinosaurs who never lost or broke this little pocket device of verbal communication, for I am driven by necessity not luxury.
    As so very often happens in life, Fate intervened and I was forced to rely upon Uber or Lyft for my transportation needs, and a flip will not do.
    I have evolved?

  9. Too true! I had to purchase a smart phone five years ago because the school where I teach requires me to use one for security to sign in to computerized grading, my school email, or sub service. The default setting is to send you a text but I change it each time to call because, until about two months ago, I didn’t know how to text.
    I live in a notorious dead zone so I have fiber optic service on the land line [it worked all through hurricane Sandy when the mobile phones were out] and I keep my smart phone off until I need it which baffles and shocks my students and colleagues even after I point out that the purpose of that phone is for me to call in my emergencies, not to be on 24 hour call for the rest of the world. They nearly panic when their phones start to run down.
    I’m no Luddite and I am more than literate on a computer, but I really don’t see the need to master and keep current skills that have little or no use for me. Increasingly, I see the ill effects of smartphones on my students [and colleagues] and joke about sending them to phone rehab [in Fargo N. Dakota]. The shorter attention spans, general lack of focus, distractibility, and poor analytic skills are going to persist as a major problem for Zoomers [and many Millennials!] quite some time.

  11. Is everything okay, John? It seems like columns written by you have become few and far between. Nothing at all against your guest columnists but I’ve been a subscriber for years because I love YOUR writing and perspectives. I know you’ve had a series of health issues in recent years so I hope and pray that your recent absence is not health related. But if it is, I wish you a speedy recovery so that you can return fully to the important work you do here, bringing common sense and a voice of reason – not just to your followers but to the uninformed who need to hear what you have to say!

    1. Look through John’s posts, about 2 weeks or so ago he did post that he would be absent for a time, while he goes through a health issue. He was not specific about it. We should all send him our prayers and best wishes for recovery. He is a national treasure! ❤️🙏☦️

  12. Thanks. Great piece. I used to travel with my dad (50s and early 60s) when he called on phone companies, other than Ma Bell in Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. Was amazing to learn plug switchboards, dial phones, pay phone, all the hardware from poles to cable.
    Ended up working for Automatic Electric for years as well calling on General Telephone companies. I own a dial desk phone as well as a three slot pay phone. My grandkids get the biggest kick out of them.

  13. Great article, thank you! I have a smart phone that is about 8 years old and dread having to “upgrade”, as it still works for all the basics. Unfortunately the world seems to be tethered to these things. My son and grandson are addicts, and I see drivers on their devices all the time, there is no way the police can keep up with all of them. They drive like idiots. My husband uses a flip phone, and has always said that these devices are the downfall of society. What is so important that people have to be glued to their phones 24/7?

  17. Great article Marie. I agree that smart phones and other “smart” devices have change the way people interact. I work in the computer field and have a plaque in my office that reads “Technology brings us close to those who are far away and far away from those who are close.” I can imagine that many who were around when the first land lings came around had similar feeling to you. They probably bemoaned the fact that people no long met face to face, wouldn’t spend the energy to walk down the street to see a friend.

    The world turns and it changes gears. Sometimes you have to get on the bus or get run over.

    1. Jim,

      Great commentary about the telephone and technology. I LOVE that quote. Thanks for sharing.

      A few years ago, I was talking to my dad in Texas on my cell phone while driving on the Chicago tollway. He said, “Your grandfather would have been amazed that we can do this”. Just then we got disconnected. Maybe my grandfather intervened to prove a point. Perhaps we should have made more effort to spend more time seeing each other.

      I spend $185 a month to provide my family with cell phones. About the only consistent communication I get from my daughter away at college is a text, asking for the code for the Disney channel that was sent to me as a text. On the other hand, it’s pretty cool to be able to Facetime her while she’s tailgating before a game or, most importantly, being able to find her on my phone at any time, day or night, knowing she is safe.

      1. I too love Jim’s quote! I copy it here so people needn’t hunt for it: “Technology brings us close to those who are far away and far away from those who are close.”

  18. Ms. Sullivan, thank you for your words of wisdom. Our family still has a landline. The many changes of our lifetimes with cords stretched through rooms and under doors for “privacy” in my youth. Now you can hear people discuss their most private thoughts as they walk, drive (hands free devices) or wait for an appointment. Sometimes it is confusing as you listen to people talk to themselves until you see their little earpiece. Or the confusion if they are talking to you or someone else.
    Our two adult sons are frustrated with our mobile phone situation as they want to “see us” and we do not have apple products. There is an alternative android which is used from time to time.
    God bless us all as we adapt. Thank you for your writing. Prayers of healing for John Kass and blessings to his family.

  20. 1. Excellent article.
    2. Personally, I hate all smart phones and computers generally.
    3. Our house has ONLY LAND LINE PHONES (3 OF THEM.). They never brake. 2 are rotary dial. They never cut out or drop out. When computer towers fail my landlines can still call 911
    4. I’ve succumbed to a flip phone for work purpose. Never went to a smart phone. Hate them.
    5. It’s interesting that ATT states they are stopping them buts its a lie. Certain medical devices still need a landlines and ATT MUST PROVIDE THE SERVICE TO YOUR DOMICILE. YOU CAN PETITION THE STATE TO FORCE ATT TO CONTINUE YOUR SERVICE. A LITTLE FIBBING BY YOUR PERSONAL PHYSICIAN CAN SECURE IT.

    1. Bad, bad advice, Thomas. Falsely asserting a patient has a disability or other “fibbing’ merely to facilitate a patient desire is falsification of medical records. That is a serious offense. In some states a physician doing so – fibbing as you call it – could face criminal liability let alone losing his or her license to practice. Of course this does not even address the ethical breaches involved in doing “a little fibbing.”

  21. Excellent Marie

    I knew it was over when I was required by work to have a pocket pager. I thought to myself, I am no doctor. Then the I phone for my retirement job, for security codes and entries.

    To think that six of us lived in the household for years with a rotary phone, and survived. The technology is great for taking care of the elderly relatives, but we gave up freedom, I loved checking written messages when I got home and returning calls when I wanted.

    Now I get; “how come you didn’t answer my call?” “ You can’t be always driving.”

    Nice thing is I just got told I’m legally deaf, no hearing in one ear, forty percent in the good ear. Hearing aides aren’t cutting it anymore.

    I m free no one bothers me because now I have a word caption app on the phone that prints what is said. Once I tell people to wait for it to kick on, or for me to connect to an auxiliary speaker, no one likes to wait.

    I’m liberated.

    Praying for you Kasso, thanks Ms. Sullivan..

  22. Good article!

    I try to live my life looking upward and outward to be aware of my surroundings with my phone in a pocket. Sometimes it is downright depressing to see everyone else self-isolating in a phone oblivious to the world around them. Makes you want to retreat to your phone!
    It is criminal that parents give smartphones to kids, that will handicap them for life. Any kid who is present, active and paying attention will outperform 95% of his peers.

  23. Marie, your column brought back so many memories. When I would come home after school (1950’s), my Mom would be sitting at the desk in our dining room with her feet up on the desk, cup of coffee and a cigarette, chatting with one of her friends.

    The thing I use my smartphone for? Besides what everyone has listed above, are Audiobooks. I love someone reading me a story. It passes the time on a long drive, or a traffic jam.

    When smartphones came into the population, I was at a resort hotel in Florida, and there in the lobby was a group of high school girls waiting for their bus. Every one of them had their heads down, texting. Probably to each other – ha!

    John, I hope you are well. I enjoy all of your columns, and your guest writers all do a great job.

    Hugs to all

    1. And I forgot to mention that the advice I give to all my lady friends is to never, ever look at your phone when walking. Pay attention, be looking for curbs and other stuff to trip over. In addition to always hold the handrail!

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