A Zine About Going Light | The Light Phone
A Zine About Going Light
March 2026
(we created a little zine about why you might want to consider going light, and some tips for making the transition easier. this article has all of the content of the zine, but you can also get printed copies from our shop too!)
Ah, the sweet sound of dial-up internet. Remember how it went?
Hearing it now brings a surprising amount of nostalgia for a time without ubiquitous internet. A time where the internet was confined to one computer, in one room, and when you left that chair, you left the internet behind.
Nowadays we are essentially on the internet 24/7. We find ourselves scrolling our feeds before we go to sleep, checking our email before we get out of bed, and sitting on the toilet for an extra 20 minutes, phone in hand, wondering “where exactly are we?”
So what happened since our days of AskJeeves, Hotmail, and 56k dial up?
The internet claims to be “free”, yet we pay with our time and attention. Two of the most important things we have as humans.
These products may claim to “make our lives better” by “connecting” us in some new way, but really they are engineered to keep us hooked. We are humans and we are vulnerable and they are using these vulnerabilities against us.
What’s been created is often called the “attention economy”. The real customer for these platforms are the advertisers who are paying great deals of money for their product, which is you and me.
The algorithms that create our feeds have a goal – they are optimized to show us whatever keeps us on the feed longest.
Could being any more “connected” possibly make us any happier?
A few years ago, Apple released its “Screen Time” feature which allows users to monitor their phone usage. It was a wake up call for many, but also a sign that even Apple’s own CEO was struggling with his phone habits. The side effects were real and felt universally. One can only wonder why Steve Jobs or Bill Gates kept their kids away from this very same technology.
The side effects are widespread and universal. From real physical impact to our sleep cycle and things like texting neck to the more existential social implications of echo chambers. It’s dangerous to have so many companies carelessly collecting and irresponsibly handling so much of our data. Imagine the landfills of phones from just a few years ago. Everyone is affected in some way by the advent of the smartphone. Admittedly there are some amazing things that are now possible because of smartphones too, but we do need to stop and ask, “What’s really going on?”
If we look at our own screen time results, it’s quite easy to do a little math and start to realize how many hours a week or year we are spending on platforms like social media (4 hours a day times 7 days a week times 52 weeks a year…), and to imagine what we might rather be doing with all of that time.
Why do we get so hooked?
“Facebook, Twitter and other companies use methods similar to the gambling industry to keep users on their sites” -Natasha Schull, Addiction By Design
“Whenever you check for a new post on Instagram or whenever you go to The New York Times to see if there’s a new thing, it’s not even about the content. It’s just about seeing a new thing. You get addicted to that feeling.” -Aziz Ansari.
Ever wonder why notifications are red? There are some of the brightest minds in neuroscience and psychology using every trick at their disposal to make the platforms as “sticky” as possible.
They have created something irresistible with the perfect combination of rings, dings, and pings matched with optimized intervals of dopamine, It is truly addictive by design.
You are the only one who can help yourself.
You can’t trust the same corporations that got us into this mess to genuinely help us get out of it. They’re making record breaking profits right now.
Remember, it’s against their business interest for you to stop using their product. These products will never align with your quality of life. You must save yourself.
Facebook’s own Zuckerberg once described their goals, “To create a world where every single person has a sense of purpose.” However, only you can find your own purpose. And it’s perhaps the most difficult question of your life, one that will evolve as you grow, but one that only you can truly answer.
What kind of life do you want to be leading?
What are your personal values, and how do the companies you engage with embody them?
Going light is leaving your smartphone and internet behind from time to time.
It’s about being intentional as to how you want to spend your day. It’s about making the space to prioritize what it is that you truly want to be doing, and giving it your best self, excuse-free.
Going light is a state of mind. When we only experience our existence through hyper-connectivity, it’s a profound shift.
Going light is whatever you want it to be. Spending time with your kids, spending time with your craft, listening closely to your favorite album, reading that book you’ve been meaning to read for let’s say three years, learning something that you’ve always wanted to learn but somehow never had the time to pick up. It can be simple; resting, reflecting, being present and allowing for moments of gratitude.
Going light is a process of reclamation. Reclaiming our mind, our thoughts, our autonomy. It’s refreshing and rejuvenating. It’s peace of mind.
Going light empowers us to be in control and find balance with our relationship to technology in our day-to-day lives.
Going light is a choice. How will you choose to experience your life today?
There are a few simple steps you can take right this very moment, free of charge, that will make a big difference:
-Make your phone B&W
-Enable ‘Do Not Disturb’
-Delete social media
-Yes, instagram & tiktok, too
-Delete the email app
-Ask a friend to set up parental controls and hide the password
-Get a cheap, low-data SIM
-Turn OFF your phone
-Smash it to pieces...jk
The thing about the Light Phone, and maybe any meaningful lifestyle change, is that it is not some magic pill that automatically changes you. There will be challenges.
The Light Phone does not necessarily make your life easier, and in fact, it will likely add friction and moments of withdrawal, inconvenience, and boredom.
The Light Phone is an attempt to ask the hard questions. What will you do now that you don’t have your smartphone? How are you spending your life? It hopes to be an existential reminder that we are responsible, and therefore in control of our lives.
You won’t be able to pick up your phone as a nervous crutch, but you might be able to find healthier outlets.
It took time for these companies to hijack our brains, and it’s definitely going to take time to undo all of that. Not only time, but willpower and a desire to free oneself from the stranglehold of Big Tech. A lot of money has been invested to keep YOU addicted. Keep that in mind. This won’t be easy. But it will be highly rewarding.
A Light Phone user once wonderfully described going light as “…a minor inconvenience for getting my life back.” Some of the inconveniences may seem insurmountable, but we’re here to argue they are not. There is something beyond the cheap thrills world of the smartphone.
Ultimately it’s about shifting control. It doesn’t need to mean going off the grid forever (although it could!). It’s about using the internet with intentionality. Being relentless with what you recognize as toxic for you and then cutting it out. There is not a universal answer; you need to find what works and doesn’t work for you.
Kurt Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope:
“Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is - we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”
“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it something eventually will happen…
…Our life has become so economic and practical in its orientation that, as you get older, the claims of the moment upon you are so great, you hardly know where the hell you are, or what it is you intended. You are always doing something that is required of you. Where is your bliss station? You have to try to find it…
…I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay there with it and don’t let anyone throw you off.”
— From Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth, a book of transcribed conversations with Bill Moyers in 1985 and 1986. These particular passages can be found on pages 115 and 146. Here is a video of some of this passage as well.
Marty Cooper, the inventor of the first cell phone says, “Whenever you create a universal device that does all things for all people, it does not do anything well.”
The smartphone may be able to email, but the full size keyboard of a computer is more suitable. It may have a camera, but it doesn’t have a viewfinder or focus ring. A lot of the apps are just analogs of real objects. Like an e-book with fake pages flipping, it’s just an imitation. What gets lost in that experience?
It’s hard to describe the “magic” or “soul” that some of our favorite objects have.
An emotional connection that has almost nothing to do with features or specs, but the pure joy using the object. It’s a sentimental connection to the object.
Maybe we’re being too romantic about it, yet, why was your first car so memorable?
What makes that hand-me-down watch from your grandfather so special to you? Our relationships to the objects that we use and live with are powerful. “We shape our tools and then our tools shape us,” as John Culkin phrased it.
In going light you are basically confronted with blank piece of paper, “Now what?”
Cal Newport makes a really good point about having something to do in mind before you ditch your smartphone. Something that you can jump right into once you go light.
The amazing thing that happens when you begin to redirect your time into meaningful actions is that you’ll find your soul nourished and your initial anxiety/F.O.M.O. are no longer as strong. We’ve seen this snowball into some profoundly positive lifestyle changes.
Think about the bucket list of things you’d like to do, think about the hobbies you want to start, the books you want to read, the things you want to learn... “if only there was more time” you say?
We’re here to say there is, if you want it.