Can Using a Dumber Phone Cure ‘Brain Rot'?

Dear readers, I have a confession: I am suffering from an ailment that the younger ones call 'brain rot,' the inability to think deeply after too much scrolling on my phone. These days, it's tough to even finish a book.
Plenty of people have this problem. So many, it has birthed a category of minimalist tech products striving to rid us of distractions, from the Ai Pin, the now defunct artificially intelligent lapel pin that took notes, to phones with only basic features.
The latest example, the $600 Light Phone III, from a Brooklyn start-up, is a stripped-down phone that does barely anything. The newest version, which began shipping in March and is set for a broader release in July, can place calls, send texts, take photos, show map directions, play music and podcasts and not do much else.
There is no web browser. There is also no app store, meaning there's no Uber to hail a ride, no Slack and no social media. There isn't even email.
'You use it when you need to, and when you put it back it disappears in your life,' said Kaiwei Tang, the chief executive of Light, the start-up that has developed multiple iterations of the Light Phone over the last nine years. 'We get a lot of customers telling us they feel less stressed out, they become more productive, they become creative.'
I was curious to see if the Light Phone could cure me of brain rot, so I used it as my primary phone for a week. There were moments I enjoyed it. While waiting for a train, resting at the gym or eating alone, I was not tempted to stare at the phone screen, and I felt more mindful of my surroundings. Phone calls sounded nice and clear. The maps app did a fine job navigating me around town.
It reminded me of simpler times when we used phones primarily to converse before putting them away to focus on other tasks.
But over the week, the downsides of a dumber phone chipped away at my enjoyment, and over all I felt more stressed and less capable. I suddenly found myself unable to get into a train station, look up the name of a new restaurant or control my garage door.
Some of that has less to do with the Light Phone itself, which is a so-so product, and more to do with how society as a whole has become dependent on advanced smartphone features.
Here's how my week went running errands, commuting and going out with a lower-tech phone.
Getting Started
When I set up my review unit of the Light Phone over the weekend, the phone, which looks like a black rectangular slab, was pretty bare-bones. The phone's menu was a black screen showing a white-text list of its features: phone, camera, photo album and alarm. To add more tools, I had to use a web browser on my computer to access a dashboard, where I could install features like a maps app, notepad and timer.
Now that I was ready to go, I was determined to live, at least for a while, without my iPhone.
Commuting to Work
On Monday morning, I started my commute to work, taking a train from Oakland, Calif., to San Francisco. When I arrived at the station, I realized I couldn't enter without my iPhone because years ago I had converted my physical transit pass, the Clipper Card, into a virtual one stored in my smartphone's mobile wallet.
The Light Phone lacked a mobile wallet to load the virtual transit card, so I sheepishly went back home to get my iPhone and ultimately showed up to the office a half-hour late.
Going to the Gym
I ran into a similar snag one evening at my rock climbing gym. To get in, members use their phones to log in to the gym's website and generate a temporary bar code that gets scanned at the entrance. Because the Light Phone lacked a web browser, I couldn't create a bar code, so I had to wait in line at the front desk.
Texting Friends and Taking Photos
I added a few of my closest friends to the address book on the Light Phone and sent them text messages explaining my experiment. Typing on the device's keyboard felt sluggish in part because there was no autocorrect feature to fix typos. As a result, conversations were terse.
Hilarity ensued when I sent people photos. Poorly lit and grainy, the images looked as if they were produced with a phone camera from at least 15 years ago.
'Retro!' one friend said in response to a blurry photo of my daughter.
'Wow, that's bad,' another friend said about a dimly lit photo of my corgi, Max.
Light's founders said they were proud of the Light Phone camera, which has a nostalgic feel to it.
Running Errands
One afternoon, I had to drop off an Amazon return at a UPS Store. I chose the most convenient shipping option, which involved showing a QR code for scanning.
The problem? The Light Phone had no email app or web browser to download the code. Instead, I loaded it on my computer screen and snapped a mediocre picture with the phone.
When I brought the package to UPS and presented the photo, I held my breath, hoping that the image was clear enough. The UPS employee held the scanner up and, after three attempts, I heard a beep and a shipping label printed.
What a relief, but also, what a hassle.
Lunch Date
On another afternoon, my wife and I went out for an impromptu lunch date. I backed the car out and then had to ask my wife to use her iPhone to close our garage door with the app MyQ. (Our physical garage door opener stopped working years ago.)
Then, we were trying to remember the name of a new sushi restaurant we had recently read about on a food blog. I couldn't help dig up the blog post on the Light Phone. Eventually, we made a guess and ended up at the wrong restaurant. It was nice, though, to have lunch together without the temptation to check my email.
Bottom Line
While I admire the goal of the Light Phone, my experience demonstrates there's nothing we can realistically do or buy to bring us back to simpler times. So many aspects of our lives, including getting around town, working, paying for things and controlling home appliances, revolve around our highly capable smartphones.
This Light Phone experiment reminded me of glamping: paying a lot to have an artificially crummier experience.
I can't think of many people whose jobs would let them realistically use a Light Phone as their only phone. Too many of us rely on tools like Slack and email to communicate.
The Light Phone might be better suited as a secondary leisure phone, similar to a weekend car, for people to unplug when they are off work. But even then, the camera quality may be a deal breaker for some.
Mr. Tang, Light's chief executive, acknowledged that the Light Phone was not for everyone, but added that parents have considered buying the phone for their children to be less distracted in school. The company is also working on adding more tools, such as mobile payments and the ability to request a Lyft car.

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Rank Phone Capacity Duration Points 1st Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra 5,000 mAh 9:42 h 10 2nd Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 4,685 mAh 9:38 h 9 3rd Oppo Find N5 5,600 mAh 7:58 h 8 4th Motorola Razr 60 Ultra 4,700 mAh 7:42h 7 5th OnePlus 13 6,000 mAh 7:13 h 6 6th Google Pixel 9 Pro XL 5,060 mAh 7:03 h 5 7th Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 4,400 mAh 6:58 h 4 8th Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold 4,650 mAh 6:40 h 3 9th Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 3,900 mAh 6:03 h 2 10th Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 4,000 mAh 6:02 h 1 I was taken aback by the Galaxy S25 Ultra's results here, but a retest revealed similar results, so this is a clear example of how a feature like Samsung's Game Booster can extend your battery life under heavy gaming conditions. This is made even more surprising, given that it shares the 8-core Snapdragon 8 Elite processor with the OnePlus 13, albeit Samsung has developed an optimized version of the processor for its flagship devices. The iPhone proves to be an endurance champion yet again, and the Find N5 and Razr 60 Ultra both continue to prove that folding phones can offer better battery life than non-folding phones. The rest of the results are as I expected: the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, Z Fold 6, and Flip 6 all rank low in most of the tests. Before we head to the charging tests, here's a quick look at the overall top 3 in the battery tests: iPhone 16 Pro Max (27 points), Motorola Razr 60 Ultra (25 points), and OnePlus 13 (24 points). The phones that charge the fastest Of course, when your battery is running low, you need fast charging, so which of these phones charges the fastest? First, a quick note about mAh/min. It's a metric I have been using for years, and it's designed to standardize charging speeds while eliminating the variability of battery capacity and charging speed. 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This has been the case since long before the introduction of the new generation of Silicon Carbon batteries, and the technology is significantly faster than its competitors. The result is that it's no surprise that OnePlus and Oppo dominate the list. However, the biggest surprise comes from the Motorola Razr 60 Ultra and its new 68W charging, which significantly increases charging speeds. I don't know about you, but I often forget to charge my phone, or the battery runs low when I only have a short moment to recharge. For those times, I also noted the percentage each phone added to the battery after a 15-minute charge. Rank Phone Speed % at 15 m ~mAh Points 1st OnePlus 13 80W 55% 3,300 10 2nd Oppo Find N5 80W 42% 2,352 9 3rd Motorola Razr 60 Ultra 68W 48% 2,160 8 4th Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra 45W 40% 2,000 7 5th Google Pixel 9 Pro XL 37W 35% 1,771 6 6th Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 37W 27% 1,265 5 7th Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 25W 30% 1,170 4 8th Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 25W 26% 1,144 3 9th Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold 21W 24% 1,116 2 10th Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 25W 23% 920 1 This overall charging test is when Apple's core weakness becomes apparent. The battery life of the iPhone 16 Pro Max is fantastic, but the charging speeds leave much to be desired. As you'll see below, however, this is not always the case, and the slower overall iPhone charging speeds are usually due to the device charging more slowly (to protect the battery) once it reaches 80%. The phone with the best battery is… There's a lot more testing to do on these phones and many of the best upcoming folding phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7, but where do Samsung's current folding phones stand? How about the new Galaxy S25 Edge? How does the thin body affect that battery compared to its beefier sibling? Let's look at the final results to find out! Rank Phone Total Points 1st OnePlus 13 44 2nd Motorola Razr 60 Ultra 41 3rd Oppo Find N5 37 4th Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra 35 5th Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 33 6th Google Pixel 9 Pro XL 25 7th Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 21 8th Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 17 9th Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold 16 10th Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 6 It's no surprise that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes last, especially given it's been there for most of these tests, but it does have me curious whether they'll be able to improve it in the upcoming Z Flip 7. The Galaxy S25 Edge performs admirably given the capacity constraints, especially as it has the smallest battery of all. In the top 5, Apple is the most interesting. Improving charging speeds would eliminate the gap to the top of the leaderboard, especially since it currently ranks first in the battery life tests. The Galaxy S25 Ultra is a solid contender, but it shows that there's still room for Samsung to improve. The top 3 are very interesting. The Oppo Find N5 has the best book-style folding phone battery life that I've tested, and this rings true in the testing. The same applies to the Razr 60 Ultra, which proves that flip phones can be just as capable as non-flip ones. I'm very surprised by just how capable the Razr 60 Ultra battery life proves to be in this test. The best phone for overall battery life, however, is the OnePlus 13, which continues the OnePlus trend of offering outstanding battery life and super-fast charging. This is the biggest and best battery in a OnePlus phone to date, and shows that Silicon Carbon is the smartphone battery future we've been waiting for.