If you’d asked me a decade ago how I felt about my phone, I would have said: “Wow, I love it.” And also: “How could you even ask me such a thing?”

2015 was a quieter, happier time. Barack Obama was president, “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars was the No. 1 song, and I had a sleek, slim iPhone 6 in my pocket. We’re now up to the iPhone 16, and while you already know the other details about our current reality, I will confess that I hide my phone from myself, on a daily basis, in order to feel something real.

This sorry state of affairs led me to the Light Phone, a minimalist device that promises freedom from infinite feeds. The third generation of the device, which debuted in late March, represents a radical rethinking of what a smartphone can and should do, cutting off users from distracting features while directing them toward simple tools they need to thrive in a digital world, like a phone and a calendar. There is no web browser, no app store, no forms of entertainment — not even a game to distract you. The Light Phone 3 is intentionally boring but useful. That’s the sales pitch anyways, and it arrives in a world where many are nostalgic for a time when we were far less subservient to our technology.

I recently met Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang, the co-creators of the Light Phone and co-founders of its parent company, Light, in their Brooklyn, New York, workshop, where they walked me through the development of the Light Phone 3. They’d given me the device to test out ahead of time, and while I loved the gadget in concept, I had a brutally hard time letting go of my iPhone, which I hate by the way. But how could I give up the many apps I’ve become dependent on to do my job and keep up with my family? How could I get through the day without my algorithmically generated Spotify playlists? How would my brain work without the ability to Google random questions when they pop into my head?

“I think that moment when you find yourself pulling out the Light Phone for the fifth time and realizing it does nothing, that’s like a very profound initial Light moment, where you’re like, ‘Now, what?’” Hollier told me.

About nine out of 10 Americans own a smartphone, and I’d guess many of them have passed a point of no return, when it comes to connected living. It feels impossible for some people — parents, knowledge workers, Spotify fanatics — to live without a smartphone. For others, it’s simply inconvenient. But ditching your smartphone is a way of liberating your free time and winning back your attention, which has led to a movement of people buying gadgets that are specifically designed to bridge the gap between our dumb phone past and a future where technology use is more intentional.

I’m about a week into trying to join this movement. It’s not easy, but it sure does seem peaceful.

Why you might need an “intentional” phone

Smartphones and dumb phones — think flip phones or phones that can only place calls and send messages — are familiar categories to most people. But intentional phones — phones designed to limit interactions with the device and to help users focus on being present — are a new category, arguably created by the Light Phone itself. When you do something on an intentional phone, you intend to do it, and then you stop using the phone.

The original Light Phone, “your phone away from phone,” launched as a Kickstarter campaign in May 2015. It was roughly the size of a credit card and could only place voice calls. That meant you could disconnect for an afternoon and go on a hike but remain reachable. The device sold out, while Hollier and Tang built its successor,

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