have you seen the ugly beasts they call smartphones nowadays (not referring to the best smartphones, which were small, compact, and not so tall)?

they're pretty much impossible to use with one hand. no, they're also hard to use even with two hands. why, you ask? it's their size. their size which seems to increase every time a new phone comes out. and by increase, i mean every part of the phone grows bigger. the screen, the camera (those xiaomi phones look insane), the thiccness, everything. except for the shrinking headphone jack which shrunk to the point where it doesn't even exist anymore (good job apple, and samsung, and every major phone manufacturer you can think of).

they grow taller, so you have to reach for the top of the screen to interact with anything up there, which includes the notification centre and settings. they also grow slightly wider. and the worst offender to single-handed phone wielding, no bezels. no more bezels for you. what does that mean? yes! wider screens!

which is why i have given up on using my nugget phone with fingers. i found this generic metal pen (which i appreciate) that has a stylus dingus on the top, and that is what i will (and have) been using to operate my phone. i just slap my phone on my left hand (not even gripping it) and use my pen on my right hand. it hurts less. i did have to make some changes to accommodate this change, such as changing my keyboard into a circle.

the pen does make it easier for me to rewrite notes from class into my obsidian vault, enabling me to draw things better with excalidraw.

and so, i now require a pen to operate a nugget phone.