Is this transparent “phone” you noticed on Tiktok Legit? It may be in the future, but at the moment it’s just a piece of plastic designed to make us think about our relationship with our real phones.
It all started in May, with the tiktok of a woman who holds what he seems to be a transparent phone while standing in a queue at a Boba store. But the video – which received millions of views and there were people who describe the phone as something, from Black mirror Or a science fiction movie, in fact, did not include real technology. Instead, he was part of a social experiment, encouraged by technological content creator Catherine Goosse – also known as Catgpt – which appears in the video. It was all to create a buzzing around the “metaphone”, a piece of acrylic shaped like an iPhone.
“My friend is actually the inventor and the creator of them, and he told me that what he wants to test is if we are all so addicted to our phones, then could you limit the addiction of someone by replacing the feeling of having a phone with something that feels exactly the same,” explained the truth. She credits the manufacturer of Toymy Eric Antonow to create a metaphone on her website.
On his website, Antonov explained that the name of the toy, the “metaphor”, was a nod to a methadone, a substance used as a tool to reduce harm in the treatment of morphine and dependence on heroin.
“I include myself among people who do not like current relationships with phones and their applications,” Antonov writes. “I wanted a device to make you think. This is a mirror for your phone’s feelings. You roll it in your hands and questions can start.
The Goetze website is now connecting to a form that you can fill in if you want your own metaphor. In return, Goetze asks people to share reviews for their experience using this piece of non -technology.
“We’re all just personalities against, what? All big technologies?” Goce asked in her tyktok. “I think that’s why this small piece of acrylic feels so authorizing. I want to say, honestly, look, did I use my phone less in the last week that I wore it with me? Probably not. But just the idea that I could have something in my life – something I can touch and I do, it really says.
Can an acrylic phone really limit addiction to smartphones?
People in Goetze’s Tiktok comments are skeptical that the metaphor would help people limit the habit of smartphones. One wrote, “I’m addicted to Ticktock, not my phone.” Another added: “No one is addicted to holding phones addicted to applications.” And a third noted that “like an older millennium, which would not work for me. I grew up when there were no mobile phones, so I was addicted to access to information, not the idea of holding the phone.”
Kostadin Kushlev, an assistant at the University of Georgetown, who examines how technology affects happiness, told Yahoo News that there was not enough study of sites such as a metaphone to say that it would help or help people limit their habit of smartphones.
There is some precedent for the metaphone, however, Kushlev noted, as some people who give up smoking can be stopped by cigarettes or vapes by choosing to use nicotine -free devices that have the same feeling as their preferred smoking device.
However, Kushlev added that there are many reasons why people are so attached to their devices and this is not related to the physical object itself.
“We live in an economy of attention and our attention is very valuable about the sale of ads – and ultimately the platforms we use as social media and game platforms, we know how to hook people,” he explained. One way to do this is through “variable reinforcement”, which is a concept similar to how slot machines work. Since you never know when you will receive a similar or comment, this unpredictability makes you register and scroll, with the hope you will get a notification that triggers a hit of dopamine. This makes the behavior more resilient over time.
And the ability to create commitment is “the main indicator by which these platforms assess the success, and the basic indicator that can be measured,” he explained – which means there is a great stimulus from companies to hold your eye apples on your phone.
So while the metaphor can be an interesting starter to call, it probably won’t be something that helps you kick a smartphone habit for good.