I’ve switched fully to a 3" Unihertz Jelly Star in September. It took A LOT of customization to get it to become the “Intent” device that I had wanted it to be. But by now, it makes all unwanted behavior sufficiently difficult while allowing all modern conveniences such as IM, payments, tickets, navigation etc.
I’ll do a proper blogpost series about it some day.
If consuming content is how you want to spend your energy & lifetime, then the bigger & brighter & more-HDR-than-life the better. I hope you find happiness. But if you at some point tire of not-creating and cannot stand spending your time as a targeted money-sack, then tiny phones are a good way out.
Use “free” Google services so that any pseudo-governmental entity can get full access to your mails, backups, photos, contacts, location … but worry about stuff in device memory. Yes. A sane approach.