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noPhone
Your phone is like your teddy bear, isn’t it?
You like to talk to it occasionally. The real pleasure, though, lies in just being able to clutch it. Somehow, it makes you feel more secure.
Unlike your teddy bear, however, your phone is an active distraction. It wants to notify you all the time. It flashes at you at the most inappropriate times.
Which is why there now exists the noPhone.
This looks like a piece of plastic that looks like a phone. In fact, it is exactly a piece of plastic that looks like a phone. On its Web site, its creators boast that the noPhone has no camera, isn’t Bluetooth compatible, and doesn’t make calls.
It is, however, “toilet resistant.”
Its purpose is, you see, to act as your phone surrogate. It enables you, the makers say, “to always have a rectangle of smooth, cold plastic to clutch without forgoing any potential engagement with your direct environment.”
This is a joke, right? Yes it is. One of its creators, Ingmar Larsen, told ABC News: “We wanted to make people aware of their addiction by creating a product that can be used for their addiction. It works as a placebo.”
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The best jokes, though, have their core in truth. How funny, then, that the noPhone might become a real product.
Co. Exist was told by its creators that they’d received an “overwhelming” number of begging messages, saying that people really, really need this non-device to combat their non-sanity.
I can imagine that, soon, there will be noPhones of many colors. You’ll be able to match them to your outfit.
People will sit at bars, squeezing them tightly, while actually looking another human in the eyes.
How difficult it will be, though, for the other human — if they are noPhone-less — to return the gaze, as they desperately look away to see if they have an urgent Twitter notification.
