Comment on How difficult would it be to live in a modern-day developed country without a smartphone?
truite@jlai.lu 4 days ago
I live in France. I did nothing at all for months, but I had and wanted no social life. I returned to my computer because I wanted it, and to a dumbphone because of banks. Without a phone number, there is a lot of things you can’t do with your bank, and I couldn’t access to my bank account anymore. I know people with a landline phone and no dumb or smartphone and it’s ok for the bank, for now.
I have mail, phone numbers, etc. But what’s really annoying is people are always with whatsapp or signal and I can’t. I feel left out of lot of things. I’m often the last to know social events.
netspider@feddit.org 4 days ago
You can install WhatsApp and Signal in an Android emulator on the computer. We are using BlueStacks for this but there are other choices available. The emulated chat program wants to verify your phone number via SMS, just use your dumb phone and type the code by hand into the computer. That’s how my wife used Option #1 and only had social media at home. But as many services that could be used with a NFC/barcode plastic card are transitioning to app only mode this gets harder :-(
truite@jlai.lu 4 days ago
Yeah and people can chose another app. I tried a smartphone emulator for Signal, and I’m pretty sure I was the security weakness.