What do you all do on your phones that isn't doom-scrolling or mindless mini games?

I mean… there’s porn

Honestly, since Reddit became dead to me, I spend a lot less time on my phone overall. Aside from the things you mention, I usually keep an eye on my work emails and messages, just in case there's something I need to be ready for in the morning.

Aside from that, my phone's primary purpose during personal hours is to use IMDb to settle friendly disputes with my wife in front of the TV. ;)

I don't find much use for a phone. Mobile banking and web browsing is pretty much all I use it for. Don't worry about being productive its a never ending hill to climb. Do what you need to do then enjoy the rest of your day

I mostly listen to music, read ebooks, take notes in class and work on termux, actually most of my time on my phone is spent on termux connecting to my servers, Essentially my phone is a pda with remote access

-Get a lot of spam calls and texts

-Read e-books

-Keep email notifications up to remind me to check them on desktop

-Watch Youtube to fall asleep

-Listen to my work in progress songs between working on them, take notes on what to do next

I take a lot of pictures. Mostly of my pets. Yes, I do actually look back at old photos and I love it.

With Inoreader I plugged in a bunch of RSS feeds of gaming news and stuff related to my hobbies. I like it because there is no comment section to engage with unless I really go out of my way, which I have no desire to. I get all of that out of my system here on Kbin.

What I find interesting is I was able to get one feed from a sub that doesn’t really exist in many forms on the Internet that I know of. I figured with the API fiasco that it wouldn’t work, but it does. It just spits out a text version of new posts for me essentially. Very useful for keeping up on VGM vinyl news.

Read ebooks. Check email.

I read the first page of hacker news twice a day. Once in the morning, and once at night. Usually nothing comes of it, but sometimes some new tech shows up with immediate application for one of my clients. Or someone posts something really insightful that makes me think.

If I want to play a game on my phone for 15 minutes? Fallen London. Great writing, tons of content.

I (strictly) have no social media apps on my phone. My rule is to decide how to spend time, then do it -- never ever just do things to 'kill time' (it is, after all, time that kills us).

If I don't know what to do, I study. I pick a subject and try to learn it to an 'average' level of competence. I typically do this ~2 hours a day, and it's been my conscious habit for approximately 25 years so far. This is hard, but possible to do on a phone. Sometimes I'll do research on a phone, and save the links to read properly on a laptop later. If I scroll on a phone, it is an act of hunger and hope.

People sometimes tell me to 'live a little'. I don't think they know the difference between living and dying. Every day, I become more. My neighbors spend their days at home drinking and eating -- every day, they become less.

Productive is not what I'd call what I do but anyway: I don't follow things that make me miserable or even just "people". My feeds are full of all kinds of fun stuff, like my fandoms or science or art. So I don't ever "doom scroll", really, but read about what other people thought about that newest episode or some new thought they had about an ancient episode or general fan squealing about a ship or the newest weird findings about spinosaurus or 'look at these new photos Perseverance has taken' or 'look at this detail in this awesome painting' or 'this is how to improve this aspect in your drawings'.

Yes I am on tumblr. Yes I am on tumblr too much.

A foss game Lexica - the word sources are quite diverse so it's very easy to learn new words.

I like making music, while phones aren't ideal there's definitely possibilities. Flip, G-Stomper, Koala Sampler and Kaossilator are my main go-to's.

And I use my phone notes quite a bit, be it for lyrics or just organizing my thoughts, things I want to get done, ways to do them, lists of things. I do a lot of this handwritten but it's handy having them written digitally too.

Pull it out. Look at the time. Remember I didn’t want to doomscroll. Put it back. Repeat.

If I aint scrolling Lemmy I honestly don't know anymore...
As a kid I had loads of games on it. Past-me would have looked at old-me and wondered what happened there. :p

Learning languages with Duolingo, journaling, cooking apps, crosswords, browsing the Ikea app (but that could be considered doomscrolling - the doom of my bank account)

I've been playing chess and chess puzzles.

I use it to identify plants. It helps to offset the inflation food prices.

Way too much music and occasionally working on some personal writing projects that don't end up anywhere because I have started so many that I lose interest in an idea/story.

Maps.

Look up word etymology. Also kanji and language studies. You don't need a language program like memorize, you can just study words.

Listen to ABC Listen podcasts and live. Listen to my music. Listen to audiobooks.

Camera. Photos and occasional video. I have been photographing some of my garden, same plants each day to show growth.

Stay in touch with friends and family on Telegram, or just with a phonecall.

I know people who use their phone for money but I don't do that. It does contain my drivers licence though. I prefer the licence itself, that said, I don't want to hand over my unlocked phone.

Nothing, really. I only check the chats with my best friends, look at the time, and check the school timetable (I do have it on paper, but they always make some changes and then I'm the idiot for going to the wrong class...)

Remote into one of my desktops to get stuff done. Check email. Research for some upcoming project I'm planning.

Bloons td6

I read. I will typically have a 'big read', a couple of other novels, a non-fiction and maybe a short story anthology on the go at any one point.

Mostly multi-factor authentication for my day job, because I work for a bunch of cunts who won't spring for a company phone for company apps. The only reason I even have an iPhone is that my mobile provider was giving 'em away for free while forcing people to upgrade to 5G devices.

And if I ever get to retire, first thing I'm doing is getting rid of my phone and home internet connection. If I need internet I'll use a VPN over free wifi at the public library.

I use maps for navigation (mostly OsmAnd) and improve OpenStreetMap with my self-made website (https://mapcomplete.org)

Read news, articles, watch science/politics/etc. videos, look at art on Instagram where I post some of my own. And that's it.

As people mentioned, looking at the camera's gallery. Plenty of pics of my cats over there.

I mostly use my phone for reading ebooks. I keep the internet disconnected except for checking email and weather. All social media use is through my PC and not the phone.

Outside of some of the other things that have already been mentioned, I sometimes use Tachyomi to read manga/comics.

Looking for used cars right now.. :)

Take photos/videos, shop, code, learn a new language, YouTube/media server content, list stuff for sale, chat(discord/matrix, iMessage), podcasts, read local news/events coming up, listen to music, browse for new recipes, write poems/songs.

Mostly duolingo and lichess.org.

Check mails, check Lemmy, check WhatsApp, check Discord. If it wasn't for WhatsApp, I could probably live without a phone.

I guess I also use it to keep the Arch install guide open until I learn the process by heart.

I use mine to SSH into my homelab and fix misbehaving servers so I can use them on the go.

I also have rustc and my full neovim configuration installed inside of termux, so sometimes when I'm really desperate I can write code on the go too. Using neovim and an onscreen keyboard with an escape key and easy access to symbols makes the experience of writing code on a touchscreen... I won't say good. I won't even say tolerable. It makes the experience marginally less agonizing.

Using neovim with a Bluetooth keyboard however is an experience basically equivalent to desktop apart from screen size. On long car trips when in the backseat I like to wedge my phone in the headrest and use it like a tiny laptop. The performance isn't as bad as you'd think.

Pretty much just communication and occasionally looking up some info. I save gaming and everything else for the computer. Phones are portable, but they are pretty awful for anything beyond the basics. Plus, if I'm out and about, I want to be there, not on my phone.

I don't really do much when it comes to productivity on my phone, since I need a larger screen, proper multitasking, and a real keyboard to actually get things done. My phone is for communication, navigation, and entertainment.

For entertainment, I read manga, listen to fanfiction and ebooks being read to me with TTS, and watch/listen to YouTube videos.

I have a budget app that I make sure is on point and keeps me from frivolous spending. I also have my garmin watch app that tells me all my health info. I've paired that app with the myfitness app to record calories and nutrients intake. So, money, health and fitness. Of course I love scrolling and a few clicker games but I would be lost without intuit mint, garmin connect and myfitnesspal.

I actually looked at going back to a flip phone, but figured I would need to carry a camera and a tablet, and all three of those coat more than a new pixel 8. Once reddit is fun died, I use my phone a lot less, and it's for the better

learning spanish on duolingo because of travel plans

Audiobook playback YouTube binge watching Torrenting Camara Notes and reminders Lemmy Work stuff

Check the weather, attend zoom meetings when I'm away from my desk, use it for navigation when driving, use a fuel app to pay at gas stations, and listen to music.

Hmm, well, I'm gonna point out everything I do regardless if I fall into doom scrolling areas.

Use Sync for Reddit and Lemmy most of the time.

Use a bit of Feeder and Feedly for different kinds of news.

Facebook for memes and local shit.

Telegram to chat with my girlfriend and closer friends also to discuss a lot of custom ROM groups for my device, Poco F2 Pro (lmi), and several other groups, I think Telegram always takes the most usage time.

Firefox for random searches.

Showly/Trakt for marking as watched the shows/animes I'm watching also read some comments to see other opinions, for anime I usually head up to MAL, the website because the app sucks.

Discord to arrange Jump Ultimate Stars matches.

WhatsApp to chat with family or users who haven't ascended

Spotify when I'm on my old car, plugged in the jack port.

Pocket Casts with the earphones when I'm doing some activities that doesn't require me to think hard (somehow I can't concentrate with them when I'm on the car, especially if they are in English, which ain't my native language).

Todoist, Task.org/Google Tasks and Google Keep to write down some shit, I also use Evernote, but I really don't enjoy the experience of it in Android, in fact I have never liked the mobile app.

I take some cat pictures and minimal YT usage as most of my usage is done from the Shield TV, which is a lot...

Gaming, just when I need to pass some time in the dumbest way possible (?) I don't like Android gaming, despite acknowledging that there are some true gems there, I'd take any of my handhelds before it though, just to mention a few, Miyoo Mini V2, Anbernic RG351V, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Switch, PSP or Vita, I love handhelds and for me mobile phones never replaced them.

As you can see I use my smartphone in a medium usage (because no gaming or any kind of heavy processing) and with a good ROM I almost hit about two days of uptime and 6-8 hrs of SOT, so that's good enough for me.

I think I would use it a bit less if I had my MacBook back, but it is not working at the moment so yeah, pretty much all my internet usage is done from here... And many users do the same (because they don't even have any form of PC to begin with).

Permanently Deleted

I make GPX traces for OpenStreetMap. I also make annotations and even small edits for the same project. Listen to music and YouTube videos (don't really watch a lot), check my messaging apps, etc. I actually try a lot of stuff from Fdroid.