Is this a transparent “phone” you notice “Tool Legit”? It can be in the future, but at the moment it is just a piece of plastic to force us to reflect on our relationship with real phones.
It all started in May, when a woman’s tiking, holding what looks a clear phone, standing in line to the Boba store. But a video that received millions of views and whether people described the phone as of something from A black mirror Or Sci-Fi movie-there was really no real technology. Instead, it was a social experiment inspired by technology content creator Catherine Goetze – also known as the CATGPT – which appears in the video. All of this had to create a sound around Methafon, an acrylic piece as a iPhone.
“My friend is actually their inventor and creator. He told me what he wanted to try if we are all dependent on our phones, then you could potentially curb someone’s addiction by changing the phone that is something that feels exactly the same in your pocket,” explained Goetze. She credited Toymakae, Eric Anthow, for creating a methafone on her site.
On his website, Antonow explained that the toy’s name “methafon” has nodded for methadone, a substance used as a damage to the treatment of morphine and heroin.
“I am involved in people who don’t like the current relationship with phones and their apps,” wrote Antonow. “I wanted a device to make you think. It is a mirror of your phone’s feelings. You will turn it in your hands and may have questions. Woah, how can this thing can have that power and presence in my life? How would it be to carry with you all day?”
The Goetze site is now linked to the form you can fill in if you want your methafon. In exchange, Goetze is asking people sharing reviews about their experiences using this part of the technology.
“We are all just individuals, what? All Big Tech?” Asked Goetze in his own tiking. “I think that’s why this small piece of acrylic feels so much. I mean, honestly, see if I used my phone less last week to carry it with me? Probably not. But just the thought that I can have something in my life – what I can touch and hold, and the conversation is that this little guy is causing the internet … That’s what she said.
Can an acrylic phone really curb their dependence on smartphones?
Goetze Tiktok comments on Goetze are skeptical about the method to help people curb the smartphone habit. One wrote, “I am addicted to my phone, not my phone.” Another added: “No one is addicted to phone storage, they are dependent on programs.” And one third noted that “as an older millennium that will not work for me. I grew up when there were no cell phones, so I am addicted to information to information rather than the idea of keeping the phone.”
Kostadin Kushlev, an associate professor at Georgetown University, studying how technology influences happiness, said Yahoo News that there was not enough research on objects such as methophone to finally say that it will help or help people curb their smartphones.
Kushlev noted that some people who quit smoking are some precedent that some people who have quit smoking may weingen from cigarettes or wasps, choosing to use devices without nicotine, which also feel like their chosen smoking device.
However, Kushlev added that there are many reasons why people are so attached to their devices, and it is not necessarily related to the physical object itself.
“We live in the economy, and our attention is very valuable in selling ads – and ultimately our platforms such as social media and game platforms know how to hook people,” he explained. One way to do this is the “variable reinforcement”, which is a concept similar to how slot machines work. Since you never know when you get a similar or comment, that unpredictability checks you and will scroll, hoping you will receive a message that will cause dopamine hit. This makes the behavior more dependent over time.
The ability to create engagement is “the main metric that these platforms value success and the main metric that can be evaluated,” he explained, “which means that there is a big incentive for companies to keep your eyeballs on your phone.
So, while the metaphone can be a fun startup of the conversation, it is likely that it will not be the thing that will help you have the habit of your smartphone.