After 76 Phones, I've Decided to Stop

After 76 Phones, I've Decided to Stop

By my rough count, I've used at least 76 phones. For the past few years I switched phones almost like a madman. At the height of it, more than 25 phones passed through my hands in a single year. Migrating data became routine, and I was hooked on the brief thrill of trying out a new phone. The turning point came in 2025. That year, how often I switched phones fell off a cliff. In the first half of the year, I stuck with just one phone. By the end of the year, my main devices had settled at two: an iPhone 17 Pro Max and a Redmi Turbo 4 Pro. Looking at those two devices in my hands, a voice inside me grows clearer and clearer: those days of madly chasing new phones are probably over for good.

Where the Desire Came From, and What It Cost

As I switched phones less often, I started taking a hard look at my old, obsessive self. The obsession didn't come from nowhere. My family was poor when I was young, and owning a phone was a dream far out of reach. That deep, lasting feeling of wanting something I couldn't have turned into an urge for revenge spending once I grew up. I bought like crazy, as if I were throwing a feast for the deprived kid I used to be. But it was far too lavish a feast. On top of that, a young heart is easily swept along. Once I started switching phones often, I naturally gathered a crowd of people who loved the same thing. On social media, wave after wave of new tech kept coming, and new colors and new features always ran faster than my wallet. Squeezed between my own need to make up for the past and the consumerism around me, I became a full-blown phone switcher. Looking back now, switching phones all the time is not a good thing. First, it warped how I saw money. When you get used to buying 3,000-yuan phones all the time, that number inflates in your mind and loses its value. Three thousand, five thousand, even ten thousand yuan all start to feel like painless numbers. Worse still, it was eating up my attention. My eyes were locked on screens and spec sheets, with no time left for the things in life that really deserved my attention. I mistook this urge to buy for a hobby, without realizing it was a slow, steady drain that does real harm to a life.

Can I Really Quit?

A phone is, at heart, just a tool. The change in 2025 came from turning my attention to a much bigger world: cycling and writing. My brain was no longer filled with "what phone should I buy next." Instead it was: where should I ride tomorrow? Who should I ride with? How should I plan the route? Once I started writing in the second half of the year, it took up even more of my energy. I started thinking about which niche my WeChat Official Account should focus on, how to find the right angle for a topic, and how to polish the feel of every sentence. As I said before, bad habits are most afraid of being replaced by something more valuable. When I threw myself into life, the urge to switch phones ebbed away on its own. But I know very well that just switching less often isn't enough. When you're correcting a habit, "a little better" is often the most agonizing place to be. It's like standing in a swamp. You can still drag yourself forward, but every step is a struggle. The only way to walk freely is to pull your legs all the way out and leave the swamp. Quitting completely is often easier than cutting back. So at the end of 2025, I made a decision: to quit the habit of switching phones all the time, completely.

Minimalism and Remaking Myself

I haven't been into minimalism for long, but it's already proven itself in my life. Minimalism doesn't ask me to throw away my phone and go back to some primitive life. It just gently reminds me: see clearly what's actually necessary. A phone is a necessity, but switching phones all the time is an unnecessary burden. Minimalism means filtering again and again until what matters rises to the surface, and then pouring your precious attention into it. To lock in this decision, I learned to look for feedback. Just setting a goal of "don't switch phones" is hard to stick to. A more effective way is to change how you see yourself. Li Xiaolai once said that a single sentence about "what kind of person I am" can be enough to brainwash yourself, to a degree, out of a bad habit. Just as he says "I'm someone who never drinks," I've started telling myself: "I'm someone who never switches phones." Or, to strengthen the belief with a fuller sentence: "I'm someone who never switches phones, because switching phones wastes my attention and robs me of my happiness." At the same time, I look for positive feedback in cycling, writing, and reading. Is my body getting stronger? Is my average cycling speed going up? Is my writing getting clearer? That real-time feedback and sense of achievement is my best weapon against the urge to buy.

Where I Finally Landed

Why did the iPhone end up being where I landed? Because it fits the philosophy of minimalism best. On an iPhone, I can't even freely change the icons and themes. To a minimalist, that seemingly closed design is actually a relief. Steve Jobs and Apple have always lived by one idea: simple, beautiful, easy to use. That's enough. Then there's the ecosystem. Apple may be the only company in the world that has truly built a seamless digital garden. The iPhone is just one tree in it, growing alongside the Apple Watch, MacBook, and AirPods into an ecosystem that feels efficient and comfortable to me. To stay true to this idea, in 2025 I sold my Windows computer and kept only a MacBook. Windows can play games, but I realized games take up a tiny share of my life and aren't necessary. That's what trade-offs are: for the sake of what matters more, it's fine to give up a little bit of possibility.

Final Thoughts

The most miserable state in life is knowing what you shouldn't do and still struggling in the swamp of "a little better." Minimalism gave me a push and got me all the way out of the swamp. I'm not writing this to criticize friends who love trying new phones. I just want to share one idea: don't let secondary desires blind you and leave what truly matters gathering dust. Of course, if switching phones is the thing that truly matters to you, then enjoy it to the fullest, and don't worry about what anyone thinks.