Earlier this year, Eric Antonow was in a cafe with his family when he felt familiar and familiar to approach his phone. He patted his pocket for relief, the thin, cool cloth was still there. He joked to his family that, like an Jones addict, he would someday need a medical solution to detoxify from his phone. Opioid addicts have methadone. IPhone addicts will need … methhaPhone.
This is a joke, but I received two laughter from my two teenagers, yellow, Mr. Antonow said. “I am like, 'I will commit a little.'”
Antonow, former marketing director at Google and Facebook, pledged with bits for half a decade, making what he calledToys do not think. His online store has projects like oneListening switch“To indicate when a person is paying attention and vinyl to meditate silentWith 20 minutes of silence, recorded on each side (not required to play).
So, for a few days since his latest joke, he took advantage of Tatgpt to mock the image of a device in the shape of the phone, without all the content: a dim rectangle that one could look at or throughout. From the original general sketch appeared a more cognitive design appeared: a clear 6 -inch acrylic sheet with rounded angles, like iPhones and green edges like glass. Antonow ordered the samples and started Indiegogo campaign For Methaphone: To leave your phone without being craving or withdrawing money.
The problem of the smartphone is that we all want to use our phones less, but very few of us really do. Apple and Google have provided a few storage of life in 2018, in the form of Self -adjustment tool alike Screen time limitBut most of them went out the window during the pandemic years when the screen became a window in the outside world. Now, a person hoping to reclaim their attention is trapped between two unattractive options: lowering a minimalist stupid phone, or surrendering to the small source of Drip Drip of the infinite content. Either way, the phone won.
In response, a painting industry has appeared to provide separate tools. There are applications called symbols, such as Free And ConcentrateThat block blocks the content. Start -up companies like Brick And Unwell Provide NFC physical keys, keys to lock and unlock addictive applications. . YondrA bag can be locked to prevent the use of phones in the courtroom and concert. And there is a developing product line of dumb phone, some with high prices, post -modernity.
Unlike those solutions, Methaphaphone did nothing much. It was a more statement: This is not a phone. But in a technological surplus culture, the project has widely resonated, like ozempic in an obesity epidemic.
In May, when the first lot of Methaphones came, Antonow sent them to dozens of friends to receive their reaction. A recipient is Catherine Goetze, who quickly posted a video about Methaphaphone for her 400,000 followers on Tiktok. In tapeGoetze is standing in line at a Boba store in San Francisco, hunched like everyone else, but instead of rolling her phone, she is rolling a clear acrylic sheet. The commentators were crazy with speculators. Is it a nokia prototype? ONE Black mirror The video introduction? Within five days, the video has more than 53 million views.
After Goetze's video, Antonow said that Methaphone was sold out. (Initially he ordered 100 units, sold as A limited release, for $ 25.) While he has an additional plan, he says that the future of Methaphinh is less than personal purchases compared to larger -scale experiments, a restaurant offers a Methaphaphone in the menu so that people can use meals without being distracted. The phone is not just the portal for others, they are different gates. Therefore, the counterweight also needs to be more important than 'Oh, I need to remember not to use my phone at the table,' he said.