TL;DR
- A Kickstarter campaign wants to curb screen addiction with a six-pound stainless steel phone case.
- The 6-Pound Phone Case is intentionally heavy, pocket-unfriendly, and screwed together.
- Matter Neuroscience says the weight creates a physical feedback loop that helps reduce screen time.
Many of us have tried to spend less time on our phones. You might have tried to hide your device in another room, use app timers, or let Android’s Bedtime mode turn the screen gray when it’s time to wind down. Some of you may have even bought a timed lock box to physically prevent you from accessing your handset during certain parts of the day.
If you’ve tried all that and still find yourself doom scrolling, one Kickstarter campaign thinks it’s time for a different approach — specifically, a more physically painful one.
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The 6-Pound Phone Case is exactly what it sounds like: a stainless-steel slab that turns your smartphone into a dumbbell. It’s the creation of Matter Neuroscience, a small team that claims to have found a bizarrely effective way to curb compulsive scrolling. The case started as a joke, but after early tests apparently led to “significant decreases in screen time,” the group decided to see if anyone else would be interested in one.
If the 6-Pound Phone Case were affordable, would you consider buying it?
2 votes
The team’s simple reasoning is that holding a six-pound (2.7kg) phone is exhausting. Your hands get tired long before your brain does, creating a physical feedback loop that makes you put the thing down. The result, they say, is less time on social media and more time doing literally anything else.
The case is also built to frustrate you in other ways. It doesn’t fit in a pocket, and it can’t be popped off like a typical case. Four screws hold it together, requiring an Allen key and a bit of time to disassemble. Designed to resemble a 1980s brick phone, the 6-Pound Case still allows you to use all the phone’s functions, but everything becomes physically more challenging. That inconvenience is the point. As the team puts it, it’s for those ready to make their phones “a tool again.” It’s compatible with the iPhone 13 through 17 in the regular, Pro, and Pro Max models.
As you might have guessed, a six-pound chunk of steel isn’t cheap. It costs an equally painful $209, though Matter acknowledges that this is too expensive and says that’s just the break-even price. They even list where every dollar goes, stating that it is built abroad and is subject to tariffs and import duties, but they say that US manufacturing would cost even more.
At the time of writing, the campaign has raised almost $13,000 of its $75,000 goal with just over 50 days left. Even if it doesn’t reach the finish line, it’s a novel yet straightforward solution to phone addiction. Without having tried it, I can safely say that it would help me use my phone less, and possibly build a bit of extra muscle tone at the same time.
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