Using a Flip Phone

So, there are ways to successfully use a flip phone in the current year. It takes a little bit of tweaking, and some technical knowledge, but is very doable as long as you don't depend on Apple Pay and things like that.

The Kyocera Dura series of phones are probably the best for this purpose in the USA, some Japanese Keitei will work here, but not all have the same bands needed to work over our networks (a real shame, because they are some neat looking phones), anything else is likely to be a grandma phone too basic and cheaply made to be tolerable in any real sense. 

The Kyoceras run on an Android 11 based OS, and so Android apps can be easily sideloaded onto them. I loved using mine, because it presented to me the perfect balance of having just enough utility and entertainment to suit my needs without demanding my attention as often as possible. It was freeing, to use a phone with purpose like that. These models do not have touch screens, so navigating them is done through an old fashioned cursor, which sounds clunky until you get used to it. Despite this and their looks they are very capable. I had mine running Discord, YouTube, Google Maps, even slither.io with no issues. An added bonus was that none of these apps spammed you with notifications, you only saw what you checked for. The only reason I speak in past tense now is that my school's 2FA made me switch back, which might be the case for you.

I am just one person, but I hope others will come to realize that there is a way to break free of the tentacles of algorithms. Not using a smartphone is basically an open act of rebellion in current society- which was essentially built around them and the data farmers who profit from them, but it can be done.