For five years, my flip phone has changed my life for the better. Yes, I get lost a lot

Life on the flip side has its challenges, but each day free from my soul-sucking smartphone brings moments of reprieve

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One afternoon five years ago, I walked into a Verizon store and asked a bemused salesman for the dumbest phone in the shop.

My iPhone had recently suffered a fatal dunking while I was clumsily fishing a bass pond, and I was searching for a new device. In truth, the accident had felt serendipitous, as though, on some subconscious level, I'd wanted to drown the 4G demon who lived in my pocket.