
Ask HN: Do you turn your phone off ever? - ParameterOne
Do you turn off your phone or do you just occasionally set it to silent?
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marenkay
Always set to silent. Never turn it off but I tend to not even take it with me
most of the time. Important stuff never happens via mobile phone or social
media anyway.

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Aksan
That's strange. Do you effectively just use your mobile as a landline then? I
don't see the point in owning one if you don't take it with you.

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marenkay
Well, I used it for a few years until experience showed that having a phone on
you all the time does not actually provide any benefits, so it's mostly
landline replacement indeed.

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inetsee
I recently went on a trip to Europe where I had to swap out my regular SIM
card for a European SIM card, then swap back when I returned. Changing the SIM
card on my phone requires removing the battery, so, yes, I powered my phone
off to do this.

Otherwise, I almost never power off my phone. I do switch it to airplane mode
when I fly, and set it to silent when appropriate.

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akulbe
On silent by default. I have an iPhone and Watch. When the phone rings, it
displays on the watch. I can answer if it's important enough.

I turn it off in flight, sometimes. Airplane mode otherwise.

Very rarely off completely.

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atsaloli
Every night. I love not being oncall any more. I started out as a sysadmin,
then Dir Ops, and now I'm a consultant/trainer. 15 years of on-call was
enough.

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borplk
What's "Dir Ops"?

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grzm
Director of Operations.

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marssaxman
I rarely turn it entirely off, since it takes an annoyingly long time to start
back up again, but it stays in silent mode most of the time. I don't use email
sync, either, and I leave location services disabled unless I'm about to
launch an app for which I think location services would be useful. Basically I
want the phone to sit there and do nothing until I decide I want something
from it.

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mattbgates
Airplane mode when I'm at work and at night when no one should be calling. So
pretty much, my phone is only ever "on" for a few hours a day.

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aakriti1215
Mine's on silent 24/7, no vibration, but never off. Also, being a millennial
woman with small pockets that don't fit my phone, I almost always have it in
my hand so I can see anything I've missed every 15-20 minutes at least. I have
all of my notifications for social media turned off.

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Grangar
In theaters, when I need to conserve battery and before passing airport
security.

Also, an incidental reboot happens because the battery runs out.

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mod
I turn mine off. I have an android smartphone.

It's not very important to me. I live in a rural area with bad coverage, but
more importantly--I own a computer, and I spend most of my day on it. I can't
see the use for my phone when I'm sitting at my computer.

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paulmatthijs
Always to fully silent, vibration off too. Watch is set to silent and vibrate,
and I take it off between 6-8PM for family time. Do Not Disturb on the Watch
is switched on when I go to sleep, so I can still track my sleep.

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shakna
I probably restart it every couple of weeks, and I switch it off at the
movies, because the alarm can turn sound back on.

When I was on-call, and then got a weekend off, I turned it off. Someone
always tried to call. But I'm not in that 24/6 space anymore.

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cafard
It mostly stays in my pocket, and is often set on silent. It is never in a
room where I'm sleeping unless I am using its alarm function. I rarely think
to turn it off, unless for some reason I've let the battery run low.

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wingerlang
If I have low battery while travelling and really need it when arriving I
might do it.

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waterphone
I don't turn it off, but I put it on airplane mode regularly when I'm going to
be in a low signal area where it will rapidly drain the battery trying to
connect to towers, e.g. while backpacking.

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nataz
At the movies, while at work, international travel if going long periods w/o
easy access to an outlet, and in some countries where I'm particularly worried
about security concerns.

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mbrock
Nope. It's a Nokia 130 or something with no internet stuff, and the only
people who know the number are close friends who only call when it's really
necessary.

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laurenproctor
My phone is almost always on silent (no vibration or anything) but it is
almost always on. I reboot it every couple of weeks though.

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makecheck
In theaters. Partly because phones cannot be trusted to make zero noise
otherwise (terrible OS design, in my opinion).

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akuji1993
Mute them and put them in "Do not disturb" so they don't vibrate either? What
other noise does your phone make?

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anonnyj
As far as I've found, I can't make my iPhone not make the low-battery sound.

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tinus_hn
The iPhone does not play a low-battery sound when the mute switch is on.

The only sound that plays is sound that you specifically asked for, like music
or sound from a video, the alarm and sound from badly behaving apps.

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logicallee
>The only sound that plays is sound that you specifically asked for, like
[...] sound from badly behaving apps.

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logicallee
This got downvoted, so let me rephrase:

"Unfortunately, where you listed the example of 'badly behaving apps' as one
of the sounds it does play, this shows that in many cases the only way to be
sure that it will not play sounds is to turn the power off. That is the only
way to know this will not happen."

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tuananh
I don't but i keep my phone in another room while i'm at home / airplane mode
when necessary.

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dpeck
These responses seem completely alien to me.

Do those of you who turn your phones off or leave them places not have
spouses/children to be responsible for, aging parents/grandparents to help out
with, or in generally want to be available for friends when they need anything
or just want to grab a beer and catch up?

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Kali909
We somehow survived w/o back in the day, and that feeling of constantly being
contactable, or feeling you need to be, is debilitating imo.

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raarts
'Constantly being contactable' is something of an old person's gripe, because
they grew up with being unreachable by default. I walked 30 mins to school
when I was 8, and took day-long biking trips with my younger brother at 14 yo
without having a phone.

Almost unheard of these days (depending on where you live).

Personally I never switch off my iphone or even set it silent, but after years
of living an event-driven life I learned to ignore those interruptions.

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viacoffee
Always on silent, DnD at work, and usually have it turned off the entire
weekend.

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tony-allan
Never off. Sometimes silent mode or airplane mode where necessary.

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ProMarc
I never turn it off, but in the night it is silent.

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miguelrochefort
Never.

