Substitute Phone will never cure your iPhone addiction

By

Substitute Phone
It's little more than a fancy fidget spinner.
Photo: Klemens Schillinger

Spending too much time on your iPhone? You might be addicted. One designer hopes to help cure that with the Substitute Phone.

It doesn’t have iMessage or Facebook or Snapchat. It doesn’t even have a screen. Instead, it’s a block of plastic that uses stone beads to give you the touchscreen gestures you crave.

Will it really work?

Smartphone addiction is real. If you can’t go an hour without picking yours up, you go to bed late because you can’t put it down, or you get anxious when its battery is running low, you likely have it.

Statista’s latest figures show that the average American adult spent around 2 hours and 37 minutes a day using their smartphone in 2016. That’s up from just over 1 hour and 30 minutes in 2012 — and it will undoubtedly continue to rise in the coming years.

Substitute Phone wants to change that

Designer Klemens Schillinger wants to change that with the Substitute Phone. Its stone beads are designed to imitate the gestures you frequently use on your smartphone to scroll, swipe, and zoom.

The idea is that instead of picking up your phone, you play with Substitute Phone instead. It gives you the feeling of using a smartphone, without taking your attention away from friends, family, and colleagues.

Substitute Phone swipe

“The touchscreen smartphone has made it possible to ‘escape’ into social media,” Schillinger told Dezeen. “We check emails and messages not only on public transport but also in social situations, for example when having drinks with friends.”

“More and more often one feels the urge to check their phone, even if you are not expecting a specific message or call. These observations inspired the idea of making a tool that would help stop this ‘checking’ behaviour.”

Will it really work?

To make the experience even more realistic, Substitute Phone was designed to be just as heavy as a real phone. But is this enough to divert your attention away from your beloved iPhone?

We think not.

Most of us are addicted to our smartphones not because they feel good when we’re using them, but because we can’t get enough of social media feeds or the latest games. The Substitute Phone does nothing to fill the void when those are taken away.

It’s like giving a glass of water to an alcoholic. They’ll enjoy a similar feeling when they drink, but it won’t satisfy their craving.

Schillinger insists the Substitute Phone isn’t just another fidget spinner, but it’s really only good for fiddling. As soon as you hear that all too familiar ping, or a vibration in your pocket, you’ll be staring at your smartphone once again.

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