I Changed These Settings to Turn My IPhone Into a “dumb Phone” and I Enjoyed Using It Less

Posted on June 6, 2025 by resourcefulman

Your smartphone has ruined your life. You’re hopelessly addicted to the empty dopamine drip of apps and algorithms that know you better than you know yourself. You know it. But you’re not a hermit either: You need to be able to keep in touch with friends and family through phone calls and text messages, just without the baggage that comes with a modern iPhone or Android. A dumb phone might seem like the answer to all your problems, but it probably isn’t.

I’m often inundated with articles and videos trying to convince me that switching to a dummy phone is the key to a balanced, productive life – so much so that I’ve actually considered getting a dummy phone myself. I may still do that someday, but the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that a dummy phone solves several problems while creating many others.

The switch may free me from endlessly scrolling through my social media accounts, but I’ll lose access to the high-quality camera that’s always with me. I won’t have to deal with notifications from apps that only care about maximizing my screen time, but I’ll lose my personal GPS. And I’ll still be able to call and text, but I’ll miss tools like iMessage and FaceTime that are critical to staying connected. I’m not ready to give up any of that.

It’s true that the dumb phone market is adapting to address some of these shortcomings by offering devices with features like cameras, navigation apps, note-taking apps, etc. But why spend significant amounts of money on such a device when I already have a device I can customize instead?

So, here’s what I did — I took my very smart, very addictive iPhone and made it dumber. Here are the steps I took, plus a few extra tips you can try yourself (while the instructions may vary, these tips will work for Android phones, too):

I uninstalled as many apps as I could.

Apps pile up on my phone like cables in a junk drawer. I only really use a few of them, but after years of testing apps on my phone, there are a lot of them. By making my phone dumber, I was able to clean my house.

My advice is to be as brutal as possible here. The first app on my list, AdGuard, stays because I need an ad blocker to make the modern internet usable. (Yes, I want a working internet on my dumb iPhone, and one that blocks predatory apps to boot.) But Amazon? Bye. Bluesky? Goodbye. ChatGPT? LOL.

The priority is to eliminate apps that distract you or suck you into hours of mindless activity. Social media is a top target, but even that is becoming risky. Is it really possible to ditch all social media on your smartphone? Some might, but others might find it extreme or borderline impossible. (More on that in the next section.)

Here’s a helpful tip: If you can access a social networking site in a web browser, do that instead and delete the app. Don’t keep the predatory Facebook app on your iPhone, and if you must visit Meta’s flagship platform, do so in Safari. That way, you’ll have better privacy protection from Meta tracking, and you’ll have a worse experience because the Facebook web app is terrible . Good thing — it means you’ll spend less time on it.

I set screen time limits for all apps I can’t uninstall

No matter how much it wastes my time, I can’t delete Instagram. While 90% of my usage is mindless scrolling, the other 10% is legitimate communication, which I’d really miss if I ditched the app entirely. There are other apps on my iPhone that I feel the same way about, and it’s been a daily battle to use them responsibly.

If you have a similar set of apps that you can’t part with, I highly recommend setting screen time limits. It’s easy to do, and you can choose the amount of time you can use the app each day. For example, I have Instagram set to 35 minutes of daily use, but I can choose to use it longer on the weekends or any other day I want. You can also enable this feature for websites, so if you access Instagram through Safari instead of the app, you can set limits for that too.

With this limit set, Instagram will run as normal until the 35th minute. Once the time limit is up, the app is replaced with a blank screen, letting me know I’ve used up my time for the day. Hopefully, I’ll then decide to do something else with my time (put my phone away, maybe?), but I don’t have to: This feature gives you the option to extend the time limit by one or 15 minutes, or turn it off for the rest of the day. It’s not the best solution for those without willpower, and I’ve definitely been guilty of extending my time limits over and over again. But more often than not, the lock screen forces me to log out of Instagram for the day. If I’m only spending 35 minutes watching Reels instead of two hours, I’m okay with that.

You can start setting Screen Time limits through Settings > Screen Time > App Limits .

I turned off notifications for everything.

Smartphone notifications are out of control. These alerts are supposed to tell me about new messages or critical updates that need my attention. If you use system notifications to tell me that your app is having an amazing sale, I will delete it immediately.

But even when notifications are appropriate, they’re too many. Part of what you probably hate about your iPhone is the constant interruptions and interruptions from system alerts — not only are the unnecessary ones annoying, but the legitimate ones steal your attention. Before you know it, you’ll be spending another hour scrolling through Instagram just because someone responded to a message with a thumbs-up.

You don’t need a dumb phone to eliminate these distractions: Just turn off as many notifications as you can . Every time you download a new app — which you should do sparingly on your new dumb iPhone — don’t allow any notifications. For apps already on your phone, go to Settings > Notifications and turn off notifications en masse. You can also attack them as they come in: Swipe left on notifications in Notification Center, tap Options, then choose Disable All Notifications.

This is also tricky. I leave notifications on for my chat apps because I don’t want to miss important (or fun) updates from friends and family. I’ve managed to turn off Instagram notifications, which has its pros and cons. I don’t get sucked into every notification I get, but I often miss direct messages from friends. There are always tradeoffs when prioritizing time.

I made my lock screen unattractive

Apple has made it easy to make your lock screen look awesome . However, the consequence is that your iPhone looks too tempting every time you pick it up. There’s a simple solution to this: Make it boring AF.

I set the lock screen background to black so that no graphics or colors would be noticeable. I took the liberty of adding a few weather widgets, including current conditions, UV index, and sunrise/sunset, because I find that having the weather on the lock screen means one less reason to unlock my iPhone. (I used to have a news widget there, but that often forced me to open my phone in response to crazy headlines, of which there are many in 2025.)

My home screen is also very simple

Following suit, my home screen is also as bland as possible. I use the same black wallpaper and eschew widgets. As much as I like the aesthetics of the calendar and clock widgets, I don’t want to spend more time on this page than necessary.

What do you think at the moment?

So I strategically placed the apps I use most often (and which, remarkably, aren’t brain-rot traps) on my home screen. I could leave that page completely blank, but why not keep the boring, useful apps within reach? That way, my brain doesn’t have time to think, “Wait, maybe we should just open YouTube instead,” when I’m scrolling through my app library.

My Dock contains the Phone, Messages, Camera, and Music apps. Two layers above them are Notes, Reminders, Maps, and Libby. (I’m hoping that Libby’s constant presence in my view will encourage me to read more rather than scroll, scroll, scroll.) For everything else, I rely on the App Library, which is just a swipe away.

You can really get creative here. With various apps or hacks, you can emulate the experience of dumbphones like Light Phone , which simply shows you a list of app names to choose from rather than dazzling you with graphics and animations. Dumb Phone is one such app: Once installed, you select a group of apps you want to see on your home screen, and Dumb Phone lists them in a widget one by one. Change the wallpaper color to match the widget, tweak a few settings, and voila, you have a fake Light Phone.

It’s not really my thing — I still like the traditional home screen/app icons — but if you think you like this look better, give it a try. (Just remember to tap the “X” in the top-right corner during setup if you don’t want to pay for a subscription.)

Go grey, baby.

If there’s one piece of advice to take away from this article, it’s that you should put your phone in grayscale mode. This color filter turns everything on your smartphone, well, gray, washing out all the bright, cheerful colors that make it attractive and enjoyable to use.

This has been common advice for combating smartphone addiction for years, and while it’s certainly not a panacea, it does help. Scrolling through Instagram isn’t as addictive when everything is blurry, and it certainly doesn’t make me waste time watching shows or movies on my phone. If you’ve eliminated notifications entirely, you won’t notice the benefit that the gray notification icon is far less intriguing than its bright red counterpart — but on the other hand, you’ve already won that battle.

As always, a disclaimer: I love my dumb iPhone, but I don’t want to punish myself. If someone sends me a video, or if I see something cool online that deserves to be presented in color, I’ll temporarily turn off grayscale. Does that defeat the purpose of my dumb iPhone? Maybe, but I make my own rules here.

Set keyboard shortcut for grayscale

The best compromise I’ve found is to assign the grayscale filter to a keyboard shortcut for the power button. You’ll find this under Settings > Ease of Access > Ease of Access Keyboard Shortcut . Select Color Filters, then triple-click the power button whenever you want to toggle grayscale on or off.

Other Ways to Make Your iPhone Dumber and Less Useful

The above is what I did to make my iPhone less addictive, and overall it helped. I’m not sure if it’s the changes themselves or the fact that they constantly remind me to use the device intentionally, but either way, I’ve cut down on screen time and made what’s left more productive. It’s a win-win for everyone.

There are other ways to make your iPhone less attractive to use, and thus get your screen time back. Here are some suggestions:

Use a matte screen protector : These screen protectors reduce glare but also mimic the feel of an e-ink screen. This may help other Libby users who want a more soothing reading experience.
Disable Face ID/Touch ID : Remember the days of having to enter your passcode every time you unlocked your iPhone? It was a pain. Force yourself to do it again. Knowing that you’ll have to enter your passcode every time you want to check your phone can break your mindless snooping habit. (Better yet, set an alphanumeric passcode . It’ll show you.)
Keep Low Battery Mode on at all times : If you have an iPhone Pro, your display has a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. Turning on Low Battery Mode drops it to 60Hz, which, while standard for many iPhone users, feels choppy after you’ve gotten used to 120Hz.

Will my iPhone remain silent forever?

Am I committed to my new dumb iPhone lifestyle? I’m not sure. If I could place a bet, I think this is what would happen: I’d eventually turn off the grayscale, add a nice lock screen and a well-designed home screen, but keep notifications to a minimum and app selection limited. I like the idea of keeping the “normal” iPhone experience, but without many of the things that make it distracting — even if that means giving up some of the more extreme dumb phone-like measures.

Knowing this, I’m still glad I didn’t spend hundreds of dollars on a dedicated dud phone. Something tells me I’d be looking forward to going back to my iPhone in a heartbeat.

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