Last year I wrote about my decision to remove email apps from my mobile devices. Today I took the next logical step and got rid of my smartphone altogether.

I was giddy when I got an iPhone in 2008. Having email and the web (and later, stuff like Twitter) on a mobile device was the coolest thing ever. But it’s become clear over the last year that the benefits of this connectivity are, for me personally, clearly outweighed by the drawbacks. The smartphone keeps me connected to the internet; I work on the internet; therefore the smartphone keeps me connected to work. And when I’m not at my computer, dwelling on work-related issues is both pointless (because I can’t fix them until I’m at a computer) and annoying (because duh). Even if there were a way for me to carve out a totally-non-work-related part of my online life, I’m not sure I want to have it in my pocket, where I’m always tempted to fiddle with it.

To make the transition a bit more fun, I got myself a legitimately nice dumbphone, the Nokia 515 (which I had to order from a shady-seeming importer, because it’s not supposed to be available in the US). I’m having a good time setting it up. It’s been a few years since I had to migrate my contacts manually, so I’ve built up lots of cruft. The only people I moved over to the new device are those I really like (and might want to call) and those I really don’t like (and want to screen). The camera on the Nokia is pretty good for a dumbphone, but totally lame compared to my Moto X. Using multi-tap to type is hilariously awful, but T9 is better than I remembered. It’s retro-fun.

Using this phone is going to introduce friction into my routine. Messages will be harder to type; appointments will be trickier to look up; addresses will be impossible to locate; and so on. But when I look around a subway car or a restaurant or a playground and see dozens of people gazing vacantly into the easy gleen of their smartphone screens, I remember that friction can be good sometimes.