The promise that the smartphone phone is a product that will enhance your life is, and may always have been, a lie. The smart phone has become, and may always have been planned to be, a tool that for-profit corporations use to exploit you and the government uses to control you.

If you want to be free from exploitation and control, you have to change the way you think about and use your phone — you need a paradigm shift. Use your smartphone primarily, if not exclusively, as a communication device. Use your smartphone primarily, if not exclusively, for cellular phone calls, secure voice, text, and video messaging, and for encrypted e-mail. Self-host, and whenever possible, use open-source software.

If, on the other hand, you don’t mind being exploited and controlled, just keep doing what you’re doing — the for-profit corporations and the government will thank you.