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India Today
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
Can a phone-shaped slab help reduce your screen time?
You know that constant itch to pick up your phone, the one that leads to a few mindless scrolls and swipes? Maybe you picked it up thinking there would be a new notification. But there wasn't. Still, you unlocked it anyway, opened an app and closed it. Opened another, scrolled through some Reels or Shorts, liked a post or two, shared a few memes. And just like that, an hour was gone. Remember, there was no real reason to pick up your phone in the first maybe you were out on a coffee date with a close friend. You had a lot to catch up on, a lot to debrief about what's been going on in life. Yet you couldn't help but reach for your phone again and again, just out of habit. Not that you weren't listening, but every now and then, you'd sneak a glance, only to quickly put it away after receiving a well-deserved death it often happens to you too, you're not alone. Smartphone addiction is a growing global concern, with Indian users spending an average of five hours a day on their devices. Interestingly, some people in the West are turning to a different kind of phone (not really a phone) to tackle their smartphone overuse. The Methaphone is a phone-shaped acrylic slab. And that's it. Its weight and shape make it feel like a phone, and that's all. There's no screen, no internet, nothing. You hold it, do some mindless scrolls and swipes, and put it back in your pocket. No hours are wasted watching smartphone-shaped slab was created by Eric Antonow, a former marketing executive at Google and Facebook, as both a cheeky art project and a behavioural tool to help curb phone addiction. When he sent samples to his friends, a video by TikTok creator Catherine Goetze went crazy viral, making the first batch of 100 pieces sell out quickly. View this post on Instagram A post shared by CatGPT (@askcatgpt)Though it is not available for purchase in India, the stock was initially retailed for USD 25. To get a quote, you can place a request on their is not like a kids' toy phone, but a rather serious adult version of it. So, is it the new, cool phone detox tool? Maybe, or maybe not. Psychologists have a lot to say about whether a phone-shaped acrylic slab can help control your screen time.'The Methaphone is a fascinating concept because it doesn't try to fight the urge directly, it seeks to redirect it. In many ways, that's smart. Behavioural psychology shows us that trying to eliminate a habit cold turkey often creates resistance. Substituting the habit with a familiar physical ritual, like holding something phone-shaped, can offer a somatic cue of comfort without actual engagement,' says Dr Chandni Tugnait, a psychotherapist and founder-director of Gateway of Healing in Walawalkar, psychologist at Mpower, Aditya Birla Education Trust, who often sees people struggling with phone addiction, says that those who feel anxious or restless without a phone in hand can benefit from this conceptual toy.'It might serve as a transitional object, helping reduce constant checking and offering comfort without digital distractions,' she Tugnait also agrees. 'It may work temporarily by satisfying the 'hand craving', the physical reflex of reaching for a phone during idle moments, social anxiety, or boredom. Think of it like a pacifier for adults in the digital age. This can be calming for people who feel overstimulated or dysregulated by constant screen exposure.'And then emerges an existential it can't be a long-term solutionThis is just another add-to-cart product that offers a quick hit of satisfaction, like any impulsive purchase, but it's unlikely to help in the long run. It doesn't address the deeper emotional drivers behind your phone addiction, like loneliness, FOMO, the need for reward, or the urge to Methaphone may soothe tactile craving, but it doesn't engage the brain's dopamine loop that comes from checking notifications, swiping, or scrolling. So while the hand feels 'occupied', the brain may experience a subtle frustration because it expects stimulation but receives none. This could lead to increased irritability or rebound scrolling later, especially in those with stronger tech dependencies,' explains Dr Tugnait. Photo: Then, you also confront an existential crisis that makes you meet the sans-phone version of yourself.'Holding a Methaphone may reveal deeper withdrawal not from the device, but from the self-concept it props up. The discomfort Methaphone reveals isn't about not holding a phone, it's about not knowing who you are without the phone,' adds Dr you use a phone-like slab to curb screen time?Anyone struggling with phone addiction often desperately wants to cut down their usage, especially when the toll on physical and mental health becomes hard to ignore. While some turn to built-in screen time controls on their phones and apps, others dream of switching to dumbphones (which, by the way, have been seeing a rise in sales).advertisementWhether or not you plan to introduce a placebo phone into your life, here are some expert-approved ways to reduce your screen time:Keep your phone in another roomGive time to offline habits (exercise, hobbies, time with loved ones)Use built-in screen time and app limit features (try that again)Don't take your phone to the loo or the dinner tableDelete distracting appsSpeak to a mental health professionalThe verdictOn its own, it's a clever tactile tool. Paired with conscious intention, it could become a bridge to genuine tech healing.- EndsMust Watch
WIRED
24-06-2025
- WIRED
A Phone (That's Not a Phone) to Help You Stop Using Your Phone
Jun 24, 2025 6:00 AM The Methaphone—a clear slab of smartphone-shaped acrylic—is part cheeky art project, part helpful tool for those looking to curb their phone addiction. The Methaphone. Courtesy of Eric Antonow All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Earlier this year, Eric Antonow was in a coffee shop with his family when he felt the familiar, twitchy urge to reach for his phone. He patted his pockets for relief—the cool, thin slab was still there. He joked to his family that, like an addict jonesing for a hit, he would one day need a medical-grade solution to detox from his phone. Opioid addicts had methadone. iPhone addicts would need … metha phones . 'It was a joke, but I got two laughs from my two teenagers, which is gold,' Antonow says. 'I was like, 'I'm going to commit to the bit.'' Antonow, a former marketing executive at Google and Facebook, has been committing to bits for half a decade, making what he calls 'mindless toys.' His online shop features projects like a 'listening switch' to indicate when one is paying attention, and a vinyl for silent meditation, with 20 minutes of recorded silence on each side (record player not required). So within days of his latest joke, he had enlisted ChatGPT to mock up an image of a gadget in the shape of a phone, without all of the contents: a translucent rectangle that one could look at, or through. From that original generative sketch emerged a more realized design: a 6-inch slab of clear acrylic with rounded corners, like the iPhone, and green edges that resembled glass. Antonow placed an order for samples, and started an Indiegogo campaign for the Methaphone: to 'leave your phone without the cravings or withdrawal.' The first Methaphones were sold for $25 through a crowdfunding campaign. Courtesy of Eric Antonow The dilemma of the smartphone is that we all want to use our phones less, but few of us actually do. Apple and Google offered a few life preservers in 2018, in the form of self-regulation tools like screen time limits, but most of that went out the window during the pandemic years when screens became a window into the outside world. Now, a person hoping to reclaim their attention is trapped between two unappealing choices: downgrade to a minimalist 'dumb phone,' or surrender to the dopamine drip-feed of infinite content. Either way, the phone wins. In response, a cottage industry has emerged to offer detachment tools. There are apps with symbolic names, like Freedom and Focus, that block distracting content. Startups like Brick and Unpluq offer physical NFC 'keys' to lock and unlock addictive apps. (Unpluq's cofounder, Jorn Rigter, says people use the device equally to block social apps, like Instagram, and work apps, like Slack, which have become just as sticky.) There's Yondr, a lockable pouch to prevent phone use in courtrooms and concert halls. And there's a growing lineup of 'dumb phones,' some at premium, postmodern prices. You can buy stickers that look like app icons. Courtesy of Eric Antonow Unlike those solutions, the Methaphone doesn't do much of anything. It's more of a statement: ceci n'est pas un phone . But in a culture of technological excess, the project has resonated widely, like Ozempic in an epidemic of screen obesity. In May, when the first batch of Methaphones arrived, Antonow sent them to a dozen friends to get their reactions. One recipient was Catherine Goetze, who quickly posted a video about the Methaphone to her 400,000 followers on TikTok. In the video, Goetze is standing in line at a San Francisco boba shop, hunched over just like everyone else—but instead of scrolling her phone, she's scrolling … a slab of clear acrylic. Commenters went wild with speculation. Was it a Nokia prototype? A Black Mirror trailer? Within five days, the video had more than 53 million views. After Goetze's video, Antonow says the Methaphone 'massively sold out.' (He had initially ordered a run of 100 units, sold as a limited release, for $25.) While he plans to restock, he says the future of the Methaphone is less about individual purchases than larger-scale experiments—say, a restaurant that offers a Methaphone on the menu so that people can dine without distractions. Phones are more than just portals to other people, they're portals to another dimension. 'So the counterbalance also needs to be more important than just, 'Oh, I need to remember not to use my phone at the table,'' he says. Anna Lembke, an addiction researcher at the Stanford's School of Medicine and the author of Dopamine Nation, agrees. 'Our phones have really become like pacifiers,' she says. 'We keep them close to our bodies, we touch them countless times a day.' A tool like the Methaphone, she suggests, could help short-circuit the habit loop: You still go through the motions, but without the payoff. She compares it to a smoker using a zero-nicotine vape: 'The ritual remains, but the hit is gone.' (She adds that this is not, in fact, how methadone works.) Antonow isn't the first to parody phone addiction. The NoPhone, launched in 2014, is a plastic brick that bills itself as 'a fake phone for people addicted to real phones.' It now comes in three flavors: Original (no screen, no battery, no charger, $20), Selfie (with a mirror, $23), and Air (an empty bag, yours for $9). Antonow has recently taken his own design further: He now sells the Methaphone with an optional sticker pack featuring 'analog apps,' like Walk, Read, See Friends, and Daydream. Each one turns the blank screen into a low-tech reminder that life exists outside the rectangle. Antonow sent me a Methaphone of my own. It arrived in a paper sleeve along with illustrations for use: to doomscroll in bed, to avert boredom while drinking alone, even floating in a pool. (Naturally, it's waterproof.) Antonow encouraged me to treat it like a set of rosary beads—something to touch instead of my phone, whenever the impulse struck. One morning, I brought it with me to a coffee shop. When I felt the familiar itch to pull out my phone, I reached for the Methaphone instead. I let my thumb graze its surface mindlessly and waited for someone—anyone—to ask what I was doing. No one did. Everyone else was glued to their own screens, too deep in their digital loops to pay me any attention. I looked through the clear screen of the Methaphone and surveyed the world I had long been ignoring. Then I slipped it back into my pocket for good.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
A video of a woman using a transparent 'phone' went viral. But can it actually help curb your smartphone addiction?
Is that transparent 'phone' you've spotted on TikTok legit? It may be, in the future — but at the moment, it's just a piece of plastic designed to make us reflect on our relationship with our real phones. It all started in May, with a TikTok of a woman holding what appears to be a transparent phone while standing in line at a boba shop. But the video — which received millions of views and had people describing the phone as something out of Black Mirror or a sci-fi movie — didn't actually involve any real tech. Instead, it was part of a social experiment spurred by tech content creator Catherine Goetze — aka CatGPT — who appears in the video. It was all to create a buzz around the 'methaphone,' a piece of acrylic shaped like an iPhone. 'My friend is actually the inventor and creator of these and he told me that what he wanted to test was, if we're all so addicted to our phones, then could you potentially curb somebody's addiction by replacing the feeling of having a phone in your pocket with something that feels exactly the same,' Goetze explained in a follow-up TikTok, which revealed the truth behind the acrylic 'phone.' She credited toymaker Eric Antonow with creating the methaphone on her website. On his website, Antonow explained that the toy's name, the 'methaphone,' is a nod to methadone, a substance used as a harm reduction tool in the treatment of morphine and heroin addiction. 'I include myself among people who do not like the current relationship with phones and their apps,' Antonow wrote. 'I wanted a device that would make you think. It is a mirror for your phone feelings. You turn it over in your hands and questions might start to arise. Woah, how can this thing have such power and presence in my life? What would it be like to carry it around with me all day?' Goetze's website now links to a form you can fill out if you want your own methaphone. In exchange, Goetze asks that people share feedback about their experiences using this piece of non-tech. 'We're all just individuals up against, what? The entirety of big tech?' Goetze asked in her TIkTok. 'I think that's why this little piece of acrylic feels so empowering. I mean, honestly, look, have I used my phone less in the past week that I've been carrying this around with me? Probably not. But just the idea that I could have something in my life — something I can touch and hold — and the conversation that this little guy is sparking online ... that's what really matters,' she said. People in Goetze's TikTok comments are skeptical that the methaphone would help people curb a smartphone habit. One wrote, 'I'm addicted to TikTok, not my phone.' Another added, 'Nobody is addicted to holding phones, they're addicted to the apps.' And a third noted that 'As an older millennial that would not work for me. I grew up when there were no cell phones, so I'm addicted to the access to information, not the idea of holding the phone.' Kostadin Kushlev, an assistant professor at Georgetown University who explores how technology affects happiness, told Yahoo News that there has not been enough research on objects like the methaphone to say definitively that it will or will not help people curb their smartphone habit. There is some precedent for the methaphone, however, Kushlev noted, in that some people who quit smoking may wean themselves off of cigarettes or vapes by choosing to use nicotine-free devices that have the same feel as their preferred smoking device. However, Kushlev added that there are many reasons why people are so attached to their devices, and it doesn't have to do with the physical object itself. 'We live in an attention economy, and our attention is very valuable in terms of selling ads — and ultimately, the platforms we use, like social media and gaming platforms, know how to hook people,' he explained. One way they do this is through 'variable reinforcement,' which is a concept that's similar to how slot machines work. Since you never know when you'll get a like or a comment, that unpredictability keeps you checking in and scrolling, in hopes you'll get a notification that triggers a hit of dopamine. That makes the behavior more addictive over time. And the ability to create engagement is 'the main metric by which these platforms judge success, and the main metric that can be measured,' he explained — meaning there's a major incentive from companies to keep your eyeballs on your phone. So while the methaphone may be an interesting conversation starter, it's likely not going to be the thing that helps you kick a smartphone habit for good.
