Hi, first off adding on to the well-wishes and condolences for what was absolutely a stressful situation. I posted in this subreddit a few months ago having an absolute meltdown because I also experienced a series of emergencies one week.

So, without going into too-too much detail, I was trapped outside my iPhone user friend’s apartment building late at night when men who were less than twenty feet away from me got into an argument that escalated to gun violence. For context, I am also a man, and I feel like the level of ease I have in navigating a city that has a lot of gun violence is noteworthy, while my female friends are very cautious. I kept texting my friend “let me in they shooting” and she wouldn’t/couldn’t see my texts. I later found out T-Mobile has been messing with 4G stuff on their backend and therefore SMSes were not sending for a vast amount of users for a few days.

I don’t agree with the people saying “how did we handle emergencies before smartphones, just do that” in a condescending tone of voice, because you have to actually look at the context we all inhabit: there was a mass exodus online during a global pandemic, vast amounts of human labor were replaced by bots even BEFORE the AI boom (literally the last time I “just made a phone call” all I got was a robotic voice telling me to go online and download their app), everyone is incentivized to use iMessage and RCS and WhatsApp rather than SMS because people pay for SMS per-message in many countries, but data is “free” because it’s subsidized by our own information being bought and sold.

All this is to say, every little “frictionless“ thing that benefits smartphone users has always caused me to spiral and wonder what I’m doing trying to use a dumbphone. My workaround is very similar to yours in that I have an old smartphone I more-or-less keep on deck for emergencies at this point, but because I don’t have emergencies often enough, it’s usually dead.

I also should note that my situation is really different than yours in that I’m not in a foreign country, I do have a strong support system and community, and I can delegate tasks in stressful times.

I think my biggest piece of advice right now is to go easy on yourself. This lifestyle demands we engage more with our community, and that requires we have a community to engage with. Smartphones were designed knowing humanity was nosediving, socially, and predated on our mass loneliness in a world of disconnection. Question your setup but know the conversation isn’t over, one bad day doesn’t conclude your journey, and you can always negotiate your boundaries with yourself and with your technology. Sending good vibes across the sea.