Do you get fidgety when you’re not handling your smartphone? Do you have that compulsion to swipe and scroll continually?
There is a product out there to address that need to do something even if you’re not using your smartphone and it aptly called a Substitute Phone.
The device was made by Austrian product and furniture designer Klemens Schillinger.
Vienna-based Schillinger has the penchant to “develop simple yet well thought-out products, design methods and ‘Do it yourself’ recipes.”
No Digital Functions
The Substitute Phone is shaped like a smartphone but “its non-digital functions are reduced to the movements (referring to swiping, scrolling and zooming)” that mobile phone owners do “hundreds of times on a daily basis.”
A Substitute Phone has stone beads that let the user mimic scrolling, zooming and swiping.
“This calming limitation offers help for smartphone addicts to cope with withdrawal symptoms. The object as a therapeutic approach,” according to the gadget’s description in Schillinger’s website.
Research
While researching for the Substitute Phone project, Schillinger told Dezeen he was “inspired” by a documentary about Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco.”
Eco had been trying to give up the nasty habit of smoking by replacing his cigar pipe with a wooden stick.
“It was the same thing, but without the nicotine, just the physical stimulation. I remembered this and thought to make phones that would provide the physical stimulation but not the connectivity,” Schillinger said.
The Substitute Phone is the second smartphone-related product made by Schillinger.
He made an “offline lamp.” that lights up when a person places a mobile phone in its drawer.
Both the Substitute Phone and Offline Lamp were made and showcased in the Vienna Design Week early this year, TechCrunch said.
What’s Next?
Austrian designer Schillinger has made a product that addresses the need for a smartphone user to continually scroll, swipe and zoom even if he or she is not using a mobile phone.
What can you say about the product? Share your comments below.