My husband switched to a dumbphone for a month. Now he doesn't want his smartphone back.

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You know that panic you feel when you leave the house and realize you don't have your phone? Have you ever wondered if that feeling is a little unhealthy ? I have. No, we can't call or text anyone, and we could get physically lost without a digital map in our pocket — but rarely are those situations truly dire. So I have to wonder where the panic comes from.

I'm not the only one who suspects it stems from addiction. We look at our phones for hours every day. They send us between 50 and 200 notifications daily, depending on which survey you read, and those pings can induce a flight-or-flight stress response and increase our addiction levels .

I've tried a few options to help me curb my phone's hold on me and so far my favorite is the Light Phone III . That said, this device isn't something you can adopt without a few considerations — and a lot of adjustment.

This phone is a purpose-built, pared-down, intentionally "dumb" phone. It has all the features that most would consider useful tools (texting, phone calls, GPS directions), but it lacks the things that suck you in and monopolize your attention (web browser, social media, streaming).

After using it for a week or so, I saw its potential — but as a tech reporter, I couldn't abandon my (multiple) smartphones to make it my daily driver. (How would I talk to Siri ?) So, as I often do in the course of testing, I brought my family into the mix. My husband, Brandon, replaced his Samsung phone with the Light Phone III for a full month and allowed me to grill him periodically on the experience. The verdict: he doesn't want to give it up, but there remain some pain points.

As I suspected, Brandon also found the Light Phone to be a soul-calming return to a time before the digital onslaught . But not at first. After transferring his number to the Light Phone (done fairly easily on a computer), he ran into a wall of frustration. With no browser or apps, he lost access to all the world's knowledge, which we are very used to having in our pockets. Want to know where you saw the lead actress from the Backrooms before? You now have to wait until you get home to your desk-tethered computer to learn it was that lovely Norwegian indie film .

While the world moves forward on smartphones that can identify insects and house AI agents that make weekend plans for you, you're mired in ignorance when you use something like the Light Phone III. Beyond idle question-answering, you also have nothing to look at as you wait for things. Unless you're participating in a rapid-fire text thread, you have no reason to stare at your dumbphone while you wait for your food at the taco truck or stand in line at the coffee shop. You have to, as Brandon put it, "fully experience waiting in waiting rooms again."

Possibly the most frustrating part is that the rest of the world just assumes you have a smartphone. When a restaurant replaces its menu with a QR code, you have to ask the hostess to hunt down a paper version — like you're a child or time traveller from 2010. Parking lots all but require you to pay for your spot with your phone nowadays. And when Brandon shopped for supplies at the art store, the cashier gave him a concerned look when he explained he had no way of accessing the digital coupon that could save him substantial money. (She graciously gave him the discount anyway.)

Brandon says it took about two weeks for the frustration to subside. Once that happened, a lightness, or a calmness, came over him. If you get the sense that I'm speaking in vaguely spiritual terms, you're not wrong. The Light Phone comes with a little paper 'zine (which spoke to the grungy GenX hearts in both Brandon and I), and it conveys an emotional, motivational and very philosophical breakdown of the lost attention and missed experiences that result from our smartphone addictions. A lot is taken from us, everyday, by the little glowing screens in our pockets. Getting that back can feel a little magical.

Not being able to immediately look stuff up? Brandon says if it's important, he'll remember to look it up when he gets home. If he forgets, it must not have been that important. (Most things are not that important.) There are workarounds that let you deal with the world's assumption that you have a smartphone, even if it requires a little initial discomfort. And being distractionless in dull situations is undoubtedly boring, but also likely good for our brains .

The best thing the Light Phone brought, however, is the loss of that panic I mentioned above. "The muscle memory goes away," says Brandon, "the impulse to reach for your phone disappears. After a while, I forget I'm carrying it." I can confirm: We had a few friends over and one of them asked to see his dumbphone. Brandon walked to the shelf where he usually keeps it before realizing it had been in his pocket all night without him realizing it. As someone who is acutely aware of their phone's location like it's a newborn baby, this blew me away.

Brandon still has his old smartphone. It mostly stays at home, but he does take it with him occasionally. He needs it for mundane things, like when he ships packages through the post office. Instead of messing with our temperamental printer, he takes the smartphone with the shipping label's QR code to the P.O.

He also uses his smartphone like an old-school iPod, downloading playlists from Qobuz so he can listen to music in the car. This workaround isn't strictly necessary, as the Light Phone III does have a music player and a Bluetooth connection, but Brandon hasn't yet felt the need to go through the MP3 downloading process.

Other things — like directions, the morning alarm and notes functions — all work just fine. You can take, send and receive pictures with the Light Phone III, too, though the lack of modern hardware and software features mean your photos will never look like they came from a pro camera. But what's really lost here? When I send Brandon a cute picture of our cute dog, he sees the cuteness. When he sends me a snapshot of that same dog, I, too, register the cuteness.

Ultimately, using the Light Phone means "you have to think ahead," Brandon says, "and accept that all knowledge is not at your fingertips." You might have to wait to look something up — or you might realize that looking that thing up isn't actually important at all.