People love to hate their phones. After all, smartphones are an easy culprit of a collective sense of digital despair. They're devices designed for doomscrolling, portals to a media ecosystem dominated by neverending ads and social media algorithms that hoover up every scrap of our attention. And yet, we just can't seem to quit them. Not that there haven't been a plethora of efforts over the years to claw back that focus and attention. Both Android and iOS have a swath of digital wellbeing tools that can limit app permissions and restrict the amount of time you spend in places you'd rather not. Older 'dumb' phones have passionate adherents, as does the rise of efforts to deliberately hobble your smartphone. There are even whole devices, like the Light Phone, which offer only the bare necessities (i.e. no internet browsing capabilities) as a way to keep you from getting sucked into a device. Some of these efforts work better than others, but an art studio in London thinks it has...
learn more
