I’ve been thinking about the idea of separating digital activities across different devices — for example, one device for everyday use (social, shopping, casual browsing) and another for more privacy-sensitive tasks. For those who’ve tried this approach, did it meaningfully improve your threat model, or did it mostly add complexity? How do you decide what belongs on which device?Curious to hear practical experiences and whether people feel this separation is worth the effort.
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Using difference devices is overkill if you ask me.
Using different browsers, PWAs, browser profiles, user accounts on your device, etc. are all better or good enough options to compartmentalize your activities.
To me its not worth the effort nor the cost to maintain multiple devices for each type of use case.
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I think it depends on what for. If I could afford it, I would definitely use separate devices for separate things. I don’t think it’s strictly a privacy issue, though.
WORK DEVICES
Work Laptops
Many people have had jobs where they have been issued work laptops, including myself. Many of them do a lot of personal things on their work laptop, even NSFW things, which is insane. I know this because the head of IT in my last company told me so many stories of the kind of personal info past employees leave behind. Some people left hundreds of photos from their personal life on their work laptop.
I myself, have only allowed myself to check my personal email on my work laptop, beyond that I never saved any personal information and I never visited controversial sites on it, which from a professional perspective can include NSFW sites, file sharing sites, but also sites that badmouth your employer or are clearly on the opposite side of them politically. I would never visit a union site on my employer’s computer, not even from home.
Work Phones
I’ve never had a work phone, but I know many people who have. I also know many people who were required to use their personal phone for work stuff like social media. Hence, the need for separation.
SHARED DEVICES
I personally do not like lending my computer to anyone, or even letting someone use my computer for something. Although I haven’t had to do that in years, it sometimes happens. Having a second computer where none or most of my personal life is visible is preferable.
I feel the exact same way about external hard drives and thumb drives because I always fear that someone will mistreat them or drop them. Hence, I try to have one that is for lending, so that if whoever I lend it to breaks it, or accidentally install a virus on it, or loses all my personal files that were on it, the damage is contained.
FINAL THOUGHTS
IMHO, unless you have unique needs, having more than 2 devices for separating certain aspects of your like is overkill. But 2 IMHO, is perfectly reasonable if you can afford it and if it works for you. Two computers plus two mobile devices.
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If you have cash to burn then absolutely get another device.
If you don’t, and aren’t expecting a targeted attack, then hardening your regular device is fine.
If you don’t, and are expecting a targeted attack then time to install graphene and qubes, reject all un-encrypted phone calls, etc etc.
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Me after reading this message from @KathyM, thinking what all users from PG community with a work + personal GOS phone are in real life 
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The idea can work if you are able to sustainably maintain both devices’ separation, but the practice itself may not necessarily decorrelate your digital identity across devices depending on your threat model.