I find one reason to use an older Nokia: you can see the damned thing in broad daylight because of its low-tech LCD screen.
Apparently all phones are designed for use at fancy nightclubs, in libraries, anywhere indoors.
Try calling assorted emergency numbers on your iPhone or Droid when you're out traveling. You spend time running for shade so you can see.
This is not something you want to do when you are the first on the scene of a crash or are involved in one.

I need an app that makes my computer and phone COMPLETELY silent, no start-up chime, no blip when I open apps, nothing, EXCEPT for my phone, I'd like it to ring when I call it from the landline to locate it.

I hate phones that make a power down noise when you're turning them OFF! HEllO! The reason I'm turning it off is because I'm somewhere I can't make noise!

I just got my first real smartphone. Oh my last one could, technically, use the internet, but it didn't matter since it had no memory to speak of. Even the spartan Google search page could time out.

I am finding it a bit annoying to know every time I get an email via a chime or something. I don't really want or need that. Of course, it's handy to check things as I'm waiting in line somewhere, but most stuff that's important needs to be handled in person at my desk anyway.

This isn't to say that I can't withstand the attraction of the technology and use the off button if I wish. It's just that I can see somebody saying, "This is more of a distraction than a help. It's not what I want in a phone. I want something simpler." And, if that's how the person feels, more power to 'em for acting on it.

I got into ebooks a while back when I started traveling on business. I hated to be stuck somewhere where I didn't speak the language and run out of reading matter. (Look, I'm an introvert and a bibliophile--deal.) So I got myself a Palm OS device with an ereader and well over (at that time) 100 books stored on it. No more running out of reading matter. Later, I got a version that could play MP3's but battery life wasn't very good so I stayed with a separate MP3 player as well as a separate cell phone. More recently, with the effective demise of Palm, I went with an iPod Touch and battery life was good enough I could roll in the MP3 playing as well. I've still got a plain cell phone but my next upgrade will almost certainly be a smart phone--probably Android--and I'll have rolled all three into one.

And yes, the off button works wonders.

Just turn off your phone to keep it from annoying you or others? That sounds familiar, where did I read that before?

Not sure why someone is silly for making what seems to be a reasoned decision to downgrade.

The only cell phone I have ever owned is because my company required it. I don't have any need to be in constant communication and actually prefer not to be.

Any one involved in Current is a jackass.

"Before that he was with Current TV as an online strategist, inventing the future of digital journalism."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!

My personal phone is Android. There is a great app called Audio Guru. It allows one to create volume setting profiles that engage with a single tap on the screen.

My work provides me with an iPhone. When I'm home and not on-call, I just flick the little silent switch, easy.

far as self control, try punching yourself in the face in order to learn self-discipline...

Not sure why someone is silly for making what seems to be a reasoned decision to downgrade.

If his job is as a "technologist", it behooves him to be able to manage the technology. There's a phrase in the tech world eat your own dog food, which means that you use your the products you try to sell to others in-house.

If you can't manage your own products, why should anyone else bother?

I'm going to go out on a small limb, and say that he's a hipster douchebag drinking fancy coffees at a local cafe and would never darken Starbuck's door, and drinks PBR, or perhaps vodka and red bull, probably Grey Goose when he wants something a bit stronger, and has a BA in...communications, and a Texas-sized shitload of student loan debt.

Bonus: for the Android users, I recommend Shush.

"If his job is as a "technologist", it behooves him to be able to manage the technology. There's a phrase in the tech world eat your own dog food, which means that you use your the products you try to sell to others in-house."

Here's a phrase for you, "Don't try to feed me bullshit and tell me it's cake". The guy is trying to write a book and he got rid of distractions. He did manage the technology

@causticf - agreed, he managed the technology in a way that was appropriate for him.

And that's the point of all this tech, isn't it - to have your life the way you want it?

I also take notes on paper. Not only is it faster but NOBODY wants to hear me clicking away on a keyboard while they're speaking.

That's just ... rude.

Not sure why someone is silly for making what seems to be a reasoned decision to downgrade.

Part of it is the smug factor. I haven't read this article, but Sunset had an article about bay area hipsters downgrading their electronics. They can do whatever they want of course but the article presented it as though living without electronics was a superior moral choice and that is silly.

"Part of it is the smug factor."

Like steampunk and suspenders, I'm sure they're very functional. OTOH I totally respect the field engineers and construction workers who still use flip phones because they're more durable in the trench. When you have to operate a backhoe, chew sunflower seeds and tuck the thing between your shoulder and ear, that counts for something.

"he found his iPhone and other technologies were getting in the way of his productivity"

Yeah, porn does tend to get in the way of productivity.