Being Okay with Being Bored: How I Dumbed Down My iPhone

Guest Post by Marcus Amaker

“When you try to stop motion to achieve quietude, 
the very effort fills you with activity.”
~ The Hsin Hsin Ming

In 2005, a poem came to me about falling into obsessive distraction because of love. One of the lines was: “don’t go out of your way for someone who is in the way.” In 2025, that mantra might shift to: “don’t go out of your way for something that is in the way.”

I’ve been creating and documenting my art since I was ten. My first song was recorded straight to cassette in 1986. That meant hitting record on a clunky deck, rewinding tape, and labeling it by hand. It was a process. Now, I can record a song with a thumb tap. It’s beautiful. The tools we have are powerful - studio, camera, sketchpad, library - all in our pockets.

But ease can be a trap. Digital minimalism, to me, is no different than a clean house. Messy is stressy. A cluttered phone means a cluttered mind. I believe our brains weren’t built to carry everything at once. I want space. I want quiet. I want to be bored. Boredom is a creative playground - one we’ve been taught to avoid, but one I try to return to.

Early on in this journey, I noticed I was busy not being on my phone. I was tweaking settings, “trying” not to check email, “trying” not to scroll Instagram. But what we resist persists (thank you, Björk, for that wisdom). Eventually, I made the quiet switch from “I’m busy not being on my phone” to “I’m not on my phone.” That shift changed everything.

I love the iPhone. Mine is a 12, from 2020, still working like new. I admired the Light Phone and its philosophy, but buying a new device when mine still works felt unnecessary. Wasteful, even. So I chose to dumb down the phone I already had.

I turned the screen black and white and added a matte protector, making it feel more like an e-reader than a glossy dopamine machine. I use iOS’ Minimal Phone Launcher (a simple app that can mimic the look of the Light Phone), with a list-style home screen: Notes, Maps, Dropbox, Web, and Music. No Gmail app - I check that through the browser. And I’m even debating removing the browser altogether. The web is a trap.

One of the sneakiest parts of smartphone addiction, I think, is the options. Constantly tweaking settings and widgets can become its own kind of addiction. Just because a phone can do a lot doesn’t mean it has to.

I’ve prioritized doing less, not more.

I’ve also deleted nearly every photo. My phone has just 44 images: my daughter as a newborn, my wedding day, a few moments that matter. Everything else is on a hard drive - or nowhere at all.

None of this comes from judgment. It’s just a reminder: we can choose how we engage. We can resist the noise. We can opt out of the tangle. We can open space - for boredom, for breath, for joy.

About Marcus Amaker

Marcus Amaker takes daily naps. He’s a dad, husband, Charleston’s first Poet Laureate, an opera librettist, and an Academy of American Poets fellow. He was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, and lived in England, Maryland, Japan, and Texas before making a home in North Charleston, SC. As a musician, he has released more than 40 albums under the alias tape loop. For more by Marcus, pick up a copy of his 11th poetry book, we deserve a world without war—which he describes as “a pocket-sized project wrapped in a zine-inspired design.”