Is that transparent “telephone” that you have seen on TIKTOK legit? It can be in the future – but at the moment it is just a piece of plastic that is designed to make us think about our relationship with our real phones.
It all started in May, with a tap from a woman who holds a transparent phone with a transparent phone while standing in line in a Boba store. But the video – who received millions of views and people described the phone as something Mirror Or a sci-fi-movie gate actually not in on real technology. Instead, it was part of a social experiment encouraged by tech -maker Catherine Goetze – Aka Catgpt – who appears in the video. It was all to create a buzz around the 'methaphone', a piece of acrylic in the form of an iPhone.
“My friend is actually the inventor and maker of this and he told me what he wanted to test, if we are all so addicted to our phones, then you may possibly curb someone's addiction by replacing a phone in your pocket by something that feels exactly the same,” explained Goetze in a follow-up “phone”. “She has created Toymaker Eric Antonow with making the methaphone on her website.
On his website, Antonow explained that the name of the toy, the 'methaphone', is a nod to methadone, a substance used as a tool for reducing damage limitation in the treatment of morphine and heroin addiction.
“I include myself from people who do not like the current relationship with telephones and their apps,” wrote Antonow. “I wanted a device that would make you think. It is a mirror for your telephone feelings. You turn it into your hands and questions. Woah, how can this thing have so much strength and presence in my life? What would it be like to take it with me all day?”
The website of Goetze Links Now to a form that you can fill in if you want your own metaphone. In exchange, Goetze asks that people share feedback about their experiences using this piece of Non-Tech.
“We are all just individuals against, what? The very big technology?” Goetze asked in her tap. “I think this is the reason why this little piece of acrylic feels so empowerment. I mean, to be honest, I used my phone less in the past week that I brought this with me? Probably not. But just the idea that I could have something in my life – something that I can touch and hold – and the conversation that this little man is online is what is really important,” she said.
Can an acrylic telephone really curb smartphone addiction?
People in Goetze's Tiktok remarks are skeptical that it would help Methaon people curb a smartphone. One wrote: “I am addicted to Tiktok, not on my phone.” Another added: “Nobody is addicted to holding telephones, they are addicted to the apps.” And a third noted that “if an older millennial would not work for me. I grew up if there were no mobile phones, so I am addicted to access to information, not the idea of holding the phone.”
Kostadin Kushlev, a university lecturer at the University of Georgetown who investigates how technology influences happiness, Yahoo News said that there has not been enough research into objects such as the Methaon to definitively say that it will help people to curb their smartphone habit.
There is a precedent for the Methaphoon, on, Kushlev noted, because some people who quit smoking can weaten themselves from cigarettes or vapen by choosing to use nicotine -free devices that have the same feeling as their preferred smoking device.
Kushlev, however, added that there are many reasons why people are so attached to their devices, and it has not to do with the physical object itself.
“We live in a attention economy, and our attention is very valuable in terms of selling advertisements – and ultimately the platforms we use, such as social media and gaming platforms, know how to connect people,” he explained. One way they do this is through “variable reinforcement”, which is a concept that is comparable to how slot machines work. Because you never know when you get a similar or comment, that unpredictability will take care of you checking in and scrolling, in the hope that you will receive a notification that activates a hit of dopamine. That makes the behavior more addictive over time.
And the possibility of creating involvement is “the most important statistics with which these platforms assess the success, and the most important metric that can be measured,” he explained – which means that there is a major incentive of companies to keep your eyeballs on your phone.
So although the methaphone might be an interesting conversation starter, it is probably not the thing that helps you to make a smartphone habit forever.
