Last weekend I posted about realising how much time I've been spending on my smartphone, calling it a “parasitic distraction”. I tried reducing the number of apps on my home screen but the couple of extra swipes needed to get round that rapidly became automatic and annoying! Time for a more drastic solution!

You know the scenario. You're sitting (on the couch, in bed, on a train, wherever!) and find yourself between tasks. Next thing you know, some indeterminate period of time has passed as you use your smartphone to check social media / surf the web / play a game. No big deal really but stop for a minute – cumulatively, how much of our lives do we now spend mindlessly doing this instead of, well, pretty much anything else that could enrich us?!

Towards the end of last year I started thinking about getting a new smartphone. My Samsung A3 (2016) was nearly 3 years old, the battery was struggling to get through a day, and apps were becoming too slow. However, I felt an innate rejection of many principles the smartphone industry held dear. Its business model clashed with my desire for sustainability and privacy.

I may add a search bar at some point but for now, you can also navigate posts according to hashtags, grouped below in a way that makes sense to me and evolving as I post more. Expect a mixed bag. Some of the posts will feature the tagged topic as the central focus of the post, others will merely touch on it. If you'd prefer to scroll through a timeline of posts, head to my Archive.