How difficult would it be to live in a modern-day developed country without a smartphone?

I live in France. I did nothing at all for months, but I had and wanted no social life. I returned to my computer because I wanted it, and to a dumbphone because of banks. Without a phone number, there is a lot of things you can't do with your bank, and I couldn't access to my bank account anymore. I know people with a landline phone and no dumb or smartphone and it's ok for the bank, for now.

I have mail, phone numbers, etc. But what's really annoying is people are always with whatsapp or signal and I can't. I feel left out of lot of things. I'm often the last to know social events.

Edit: and there are lot of services which requires smartphones, even state ones.

You can install WhatsApp and Signal in an Android emulator on the computer. We are using BlueStacks for this but there are other choices available. The emulated chat program wants to verify your phone number via SMS, just use your dumb phone and type the code by hand into the computer. That's how my wife used Option #1 and only had social media at home. But as many services that could be used with a NFC/barcode plastic card are transitioning to app only mode this gets harder :-(

Tedious but doable as proven by a lot of older people.

In the U.S. older people still get by fine without all this stuff. I have family that still has a landline, nothing else, so I guess maybe that's #3 in your list. It does mean they physically have to go to places to get things done (e.g. physically go to a bank).

Older people don't care as much about social life beyond visiting/seeing the people/relatives they've always been seeing. A smartphone isn't required for that.

My mother in law gets by just fine without hers. But then again, she's in Arkansas, so I'm not sure if that counts as a modern, or developed country.

It does not. I have family there and pretty much refuse to visit there lol.
Pretty sure America is still a developing country.

it's not even about a smartphone, it's about being allowed to access services with said smartphone.

when the ticket machine was removed from a train station in rural sweden and replaced with a note on how to buy tickets online, it instantly locked three types of people out: people who don't have a smartphone, people who don't have a payment card, and tourists. because it required online verification, you basically needed a swedish phone number and id to buy tickets.

this was about eight years ago, so smartphone penetration was lower, but i still think about the people i met at the train station while i desperately tried to order tickets over the phone and kept getting stuck in their automated phone tree. they were basically stuck there.

Why would they lock out tourists from public transport?
- it wasn't intentional. they just didn't think about how to implement it. took them four or five years to fix.
- I guess it depends on how you needed to sign up to buy tickets, but I bought tickets on my phone in Sweden with my smartphone in Sweden with only a valid email address. The app even had an English mode.
Sweden is so backwater in it's tries to be forward thinking.
You can't even buy a bus ticket with a visa card (nor cash ofc ofc).
- I bought a train ticket at a ticket machine with cash when I was in Sweden last year.
- depends on the place. you can in stockholm, but not most places.

Does the US count as a "modern-day developed country?" 'Cause if so, it's apparently still possible because my tech-illiterate Boomer parents manage it.

(Okay, they technically have smartphones, mainly because I'm trying to drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but they basically use them for nothing but phone calls and maybe an occasional text message or email. My dad accesses banking stuff via website on his computer, but if he didn't have that I'm sure he'd just be fine going to the counter at the brick-and-mortar branch.)

I'm kind of living the 1) life, I have a degoogled smartphone in eternal airplane mode and only free software apps. So in practice I have none of the apps "required" to live.

In large cities, transportation is getting more and more difficult without uber. Bike/escooter rentals also stopped working without an app. I use osmand on my offline smartphone to find taxi stands, so that's cheating by your standards, but stands are empty these days and the drivers are a bit surprised and comment that "most people order a taxi by phone these days".

I've lost most of my friends when I quit facebook, when we randomly meet we still have a small chat but I don't get invited to events (birthdays etc) any more. Big respect to the few that still don't mind sending an sms or email (and even more respect to the 2 friends who keep an xmpp client with only me as a contact)

Increasingly, I don't know what's going on around me because businesses, libraries etc advertise only on "spotted" on facebook, have presence only on fb, and don't even care about telling the local news about events or openings. I only know about that because of other people who use facebook.

Doesn't difficult very much depend on what you think matters? You're instantly missing out on anything app, anything QR-code related (ordering food in some restaurants, links, etc.), membership cards that no longer exist in physical form. Some places sell certain tickets online only and then you may need a printer or you're SOL. I'm sure in missing something so that's not extensive.

But at the same time, if you have a dumb phone, you can still stay in touch with friends and family. You'll be missing out on images being sent that are bigger than 2 pixels. But you wouldn't be completely out of the loop. And if you have an internet ready computer at home or at the next door library, just not on you at all times, I think that's crucial. Without that you're ending up in all sorts of trouble.

I would say it's doable if you are good at not giving F's. If at the same time you only want to use cash or just no credit cards you'll be making your life much harder though.

More and more official / administration things in more and more countries require a smartphone.

So: outright impossible, unless you want to unplug yourself from any "normal" living, earning money etc.

At the very least you make vast amounts of goods and services for unavailable for yourself and weather or not you can find a local aproximate depends entirely on how profitable it is to run that aproximate while the online version still exists.

You need to include Internet in that list. A computer doesn't necessarily have Internet, and though it's more common, it's not guaranteed on a smartphone either. Landlines still also exist. Even if they're VoIP, because voice-only Internet connections for VoIP are a thing.

There are plenty of older folks in categories 1 and 4. And by older I mean old Gen X and Boomers (even a few Silents are still around) mostly. They manage to get by just fine. Things are not quite so far gone that Internet is 100% necessary, though more and more places are trying to force it to cut costs.

I'm in category #1 myself, but as this comment's existence strongly implies, I have Internet. I'd be in #2 but I need the phone occasionally for notifications and 2FA. Also if the Internet goes out, I need to be able to call someone to fix it.

I live in Germany. For the moment, i do not require a phone for anything in my life. I use it as an nfc card reader for my ID, but there are usb readers that could replace that. All other things also would continue working without a phone. Email, matrix, osm, music all work on a laptop. I actually have this orangpi + powerbank + usbc touchscreen setup that works basically like a laptop. I could add a sim card module to it too.

"Nothing at all" would mean not being well informed about politics and i think that has moral implications i could not live with. I think "computer only + time limit" is a good idea.

It's entirely possible, depending on what services you want to live without.

Kids and elderly people are already doing all of that, so it is technically possible, but inconvenient. You would also need to outsource your smartphone activities to someone else to actually make it work.

Option 1 seems semi-feasible, but it is getting harder every year. Also, certain activities are already beyond your reach if you’re in this group. As long as you don’t want to do any of those things, you should be fine though.

Option 2 is impossible unless you outsource your phone needs to someone else.

Option 3 is hard, but possible. You would need to limit your activities quite significantly. BTW some homeless people have a dumb phone as their only electronic device. You kinda need to have a phone number in order to barely survive.

Option 4 is the most extreme one. Children and elderly are living like this, but they are also outsourcing everything, so does that count?

It depends on what part of the world you live in. At minimum, for the developed world, you'll probably need at least #3 to maintain a job and connectivity with various government and commercial entities.

1 & 2 are no problem at all, I did that (2) till a couple of years ago.

I've done no. 1 a few times for a month or so each. Some of the biggest problems with that are:

Banking can be a bit rough without the app. You can sometimes get a separate device to log in from some banks
Digital authentication to eg. government services, and some private services as well works via a smarthphone app. Depends on the country a bit how extensive this is, Sweden has been really bad considering this.
Sometimes public transit only/mostly sells tickets through an app
Digital maps and route planners are very convenient and not having them substantially increases the time and effort you need to put into finding places

What usually won't be a big issue

Messaging: Whatsapp, Signal and obviously Facebook Messenger work on the computer, so you won't be fully missing out on anything. Also, SMSs and calling work well and are cheap/free
Missing out on social media and digital entertainment like youtube on a device that you carry 100% of the time is probably just a good thing
Photography, you can find all kinds of digital cameras, camcorders and DSLRs for a reasonable price

All in all, it's feasible but quite inconvenient at times.

I find having a smartphone without a sim card at home to be a good compromise. It limits the time I spend on my phone, which in itself is nice, and subsequently decreases the amount of data that can be collected of me. Also, if you aren't relying on your phone it doesn't need to be nice and expensive.

The banking side I refuse to use their apps. Either they have a good website that works for a computer or I don’t bank with them. Their loss if they can’t figure out how to build a website.
The authentication services. For like government services. Thank God, there’s nothing around me that does something like that. Or at least nothing that I’ve run . But I guess there is a day like that where I’m going to be screwed on that end. Again make the website work, right and allow me to authenticate somewhere else.
The public transport, I could see a day and age where that might be a problem for me.
Digital maps and route planners, stand on GPS is do exist, but yeah, that one without a smart phone really sucks.
And yes, I do have a smart phone.
- My bank and most others here require a smartphone authentication to log in, even if you use the website on the computer.

I did these in China.

4 first, poor had nothing, moved to teach English. It was fine, I paid for things with cash, I had a debit card to use the ATMs.

And up until that point I still didn't have any phone, so I climbed the hills behind the apartment I was renting and just walked around town learning stuff, trying for, living life.

Then I got a dumphone, which changed little except I could hang out with close friends from the school but usually we coordinated when we work together in the school anyway, so there was very little change with a dumb phone.

Then I bought a laptop and I could study Rosetta Stone and watch TV/movies.

eventually I got a smartphone and then I could start dating in the modern world. I dated in China before that through organic meetups, but I didn't realize how far into the digital age dating head lapped until I got a smartphone and used all the apps.

It's very feasible and I'll say a lot less stressful to not have a phone, but it's not as anxious-fun, and I do like looking stuff up all the time and having gigabytes of music in my pocket.

which reminds me before I had a laptop or smartphone, I bought a mini iPod in China and used one of the school computers to load it up with music.

Shoot that was a revolution for me, I loved the little clip on the back and how late it was.

How bad would it be for your social life?

I'd say that without the tech you won't make new connections as easily on a surface level, but whenever an unteched person does get into a conversation, their side of the conversation tends to be a bit more well thought out and significant.

You'll also put more work into the real life relationship since you don't have a hundred virtual relationships vying for your attention on your phone.

So it would probably help your social life, by my metrics.