iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — There’s a low tech way for smartphone addicts who suffer from nomophobia — the fear of being without their mobile devices — to cope with being away from their beloved electronics.
Introducing the noPhone.
The brainchild of a group of Dutch creatives, the noPhone is designed to ease owners’ separation anxiety from their devices.
Everyone knows someone who texts at dinner, in a movie, sleeps with their phone next to their pillow and basically won’t let it out of their grip until its pried from their cold, dead hands.
The noPhone looks like a smartphone and feels like a smartphone, but that’s where similarities end, Ingmar Larsen, one of the designers of the project, told ABC News.
“What inspired us is the fact that a lot of people around us nowadays are focused on their mobile devices and not on the social environment anymore,” he said. “We wanted to make people aware of their addiction by creating a product that can be used for their addiction. It works as a placebo.”
Larsen said the group is still figuring out “the possibilities” for manufacturing and selling the noPhone and said it’s something they hope to do in the future.
“It’s easy to take it and to play with it,” Larsen said. “It helps [people who use it] to stay calm.”
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