What do you all do on your phones that isn't doom-scrolling or mindless mini games?
I find myself checking out pretty often and just making myself feel bad about the state of the world, or killing half an hour on stupid games that I could 100% live without. This is probably pretty common, and I’m wondering what other people have found as a way to do more productive things with their phones in the downtime.
A foss game Lexica - the word sources are quite diverse so it’s very easy to learn new words.
I like making music, while phones aren’t ideal there’s definitely possibilities. Flip, G-Stomper, Koala Sampler and Kaossilator are my main go-to’s.
And I use my phone notes quite a bit, be it for lyrics or just organizing my thoughts, things I want to get done, ways to do them, lists of things. I do a lot of this handwritten but it’s handy having them written digitally too.
If I aint scrolling Lemmy I honestly don’t know anymore…
As a kid I had loads of games on it. Past-me would have looked at old-me and wondered what happened there. :p
Hmm, well, I’m gonna point out everything I do regardless if I fall into doom scrolling areas.
Use Sync for Reddit and Lemmy most of the time.
Use a bit of Feeder and Feedly for different kinds of news.
Facebook for memes and local shit.
Telegram to chat with my girlfriend and closer friends also to discuss a lot of custom ROM groups for my device, Poco F2 Pro (lmi), and several other groups, I think Telegram always takes the most usage time.
Firefox for random searches.
Showly/Trakt for marking as watched the shows/animes I’m watching also read some comments to see other opinions, for anime I usually head up to MAL, the website because the app sucks.
Discord to arrange Jump Ultimate Stars matches.
WhatsApp to chat with family or users who haven’t ascended
Spotify when I’m on my old car, plugged in the jack port.
Pocket Casts with the earphones when I’m doing some activities that doesn’t require me to think hard (somehow I can’t concentrate with them when I’m on the car, especially if they are in English, which ain’t my native language).
Todoist, Task.org/Google Tasks and Google Keep to write down some shit, I also use Evernote, but I really don’t enjoy the experience of it in Android, in fact I have never liked the mobile app.
I take some cat pictures and minimal YT usage as most of my usage is done from the Shield TV, which is a lot…
Gaming, just when I need to pass some time in the dumbest way possible (?) I don’t like Android gaming, despite acknowledging that there are some true gems there, I’d take any of my handhelds before it though, just to mention a few, Miyoo Mini V2, Anbernic RG351V, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Switch, PSP or Vita, I love handhelds and for me mobile phones never replaced them.
As you can see I use my smartphone in a medium usage (because no gaming or any kind of heavy processing) and with a good ROM I almost hit about two days of uptime and 6-8 hrs of SOT, so that’s good enough for me.
I think I would use it a bit less if I had my MacBook back, but it is not working at the moment so yeah, pretty much all my internet usage is done from here… And many users do the same (because they don’t even have any form of PC to begin with).
Check the weather, attend zoom meetings when I’m away from my desk, use it for navigation when driving, use a fuel app to pay at gas stations, and listen to music.
I make GPX traces for OpenStreetMap. I also make annotations and even small edits for the same project. Listen to music and YouTube videos (don’t really watch a lot), check my messaging apps, etc. I actually try a lot of stuff from Fdroid.
I don’t really do much when it comes to productivity on my phone, since I need a larger screen, proper multitasking, and a real keyboard to actually get things done. My phone is for communication, navigation, and entertainment.
For entertainment, I read manga, listen to fanfiction and ebooks being read to me with TTS, and watch/listen to YouTube videos.
Honestly, since Reddit became dead to me, I spend a lot less time on my phone overall. Aside from the things you mention, I usually keep an eye on my work emails and messages, just in case there’s something I need to be ready for in the morning.
Aside from that, my phone’s primary purpose during personal hours is to use IMDb to settle friendly disputes with my wife in front of the TV. ;)
I have a budget app that I make sure is on point and keeps me from frivolous spending. I also have my garmin watch app that tells me all my health info. I’ve paired that app with the myfitness app to record calories and nutrients intake. So, money, health and fitness. Of course I love scrolling and a few clicker games but I would be lost without intuit mint, garmin connect and myfitnesspal.
Take photos/videos, shop, code, learn a new language, YouTube/media server content, list stuff for sale, chat(discord/matrix, iMessage), podcasts, read local news/events coming up, listen to music, browse for new recipes, write poems/songs.
I actually looked at going back to a flip phone, but figured I would need to carry a camera and a tablet, and all three of those coat more than a new pixel 8. Once reddit is fun died, I use my phone a lot less, and it's for the better
I don’t have any social media (other than this, which I guess counts). Where my friends hit their Instagram or Facebook, I just scroll through my old photos. “aw look at the time the cat found a box” or “oh remember when we went to storm king?”.
Add comment