The Phone Designed to Stop You Being Addicted to Your Phone

Daniel Gordon-Potts

A Brooklyn-bases startup have made a phone designed to stop you going on your phone. Its’ screen is completely greyscale, it has no social media and it is designed to be “an alternative to the tech monopolies that are fighting ever more aggressively for our time and attention.”

The Light Phone II has the ability to receive phones and SMS messages, set alarms and listen to music and podcasts. It also has a calculator and a directions app. There is no social media, news, or email app. This is intentional. Co-founder Joe Hollier tells Vision this is because these things “tend to be the larg- est factors of users checking and re-checking their phones.”

It may seem slightly counterintuitive for a phone manufacturer, but, as Joe says, with most smartphones today, “as a user you are not the customer, but the product.” He says that smartphones are inherently addictive and he’s hoping that his phone can give you peace of mind and help stop the “habitual overstimulation” many of us seem to suffer with today.

The Light Phone is available to buy for $299 in either Black or Light Grey models.

Are Children too Exposed to Gambling?

Emily Sinclair

in the 2022 Young People and Gambling Survey, conducted by the Gambling Commission, three in 10 children aged 11-16 said they had seen family members they live with participate in gambling.

This means that for many, from the age of 11, gambling and its addictive nature is prevalent in their lives.

With social media now so accessible, the legal age restriction on gambling is impossible to stick to. Under-18s are being exposed to all sorts of websites, YouTube videos and direct messages with a route to gambling. It’s becoming a problem.

Even on television, adverts to do with gambling dominate the screen. For example, the household favourite I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here is sponsored by Tombola Arcade.

What this encourages young and impressionable children is to believe that it is sensible to take a risk with money in order for the potential to win a greater output than the original input.

On an arguably more serious note, the encouragement of such an addictive hobby is dangerous. According to Providence Projects, it is estimated that, in the UK, approximately 430,000 people are suffering from compulsive gambling.

If children continue to have easy access to gambling and grow up surrounded by it, this number is likely to only keep rising.