You Don't Need a Smartphone: A Practical Guide to Downgrading Your Phone and Upgrading Your Life

In this revelatory manifesto, anti-tech activist August Lamm gives you the courage and confidence to ditch your smartphone once and for all.

“The essential guide to putting down your phone — and coming back to real life.”
—Catherine Price, #1 NYT bestselling author of How to Break Up With Your Phone

When I owned a smartphone, my life was bad. I knew this. What I did not know was that I had a choice.

August Lamm wasted her youth on the internet. In her late twenties, burnt out as a social media influencer, she sold her smartphone and switched to a dumb phone. Immediately, her mental health improved, her attention span increased, and her curiosity returned. Since then, she has made it her mission to help others do the same.

Lamm started using a smartphone at age 14, so she knows how it feels to come of age glued to a screen—and how hard it is to break free. Filled with moving stories and practical suggestions, You Don’t Need a Smartphone proves that living without a computer in your pocket is not only possible but ideal. Offering guidance on selecting a new phone, navigating without GPS, meeting people offline, and overcoming obstacles like digital tickets and dual-factor authentication, You Don’t Need a Smartphone is as urgent and radical as its title, and a new blueprint for a fulfilling life in the Information Age.

August Lamm is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of one art book, Crosshatching in Pen & Ink, and a forthcoming novel.

@AugustLamm