Google’s new solution for phone addiction is to seal it in an envelope so you can’t look at it

Coming up with an overly complicated solution to a simple problem is a favourite for tech, and Google’s latest has broken the mould.

The company that has spent over a decade focusing on getting you to look at your phone has gone in the complete other direction and now wants to help you stop, and it’s going about it in some certifiably weird ways.

Google has released several new “experimental” apps, expanding on the Digital Wellbeing tools it introduced in the 2018 release of Android 9 Pie.

One app particularly fits the bill in the experimental regard.

Envelope, currently limited to Google’s mid-range Pixel 3a smartphone, turns your smartphone dumb by limiting its functionality to essential tasks like phone calls, telling the time or taking pictures.

Rather than a piece of code that could give you a setting to shut down other features or restrict them on the phone itself, Google instead wants you to print out an envelope and literally seal your phone inside.

”Many people feel that they spend too much time on their phones and struggle to find a balance with technology,” a blog post announcing Envelope claimed.

“We have designed a series of special paper envelopes which completely transform the functionality of your smartphone for the time it is sealed inside, allowing you to enjoy fewer distractions for a little while.”

Putting your phone in an envelope is the latest brainwave to help screen fiends.

While sealing your phone inside an envelope is a sure-fire way to stop you looking at it, it does seem a little overly complex and wasteful, requiring you to frequently print out and fold together new envelopes.

Paper aside, the Envelope is perhaps less expensive and resource intensive than purchasing one of those trendy and exorbitant “dumb phones” executives love to humblebrag about using when business journalists take them to fancy lunches to talk about their success while their personal assistant sits at the bar organising their boss’s calendar on a smartphone of their own.

The $US229 Punkt mobile phone is deliberately less capable than some of the smartphones it costs more than.

A woman sends a text on the $US350 Lightphone, which retains a touchscreen.

The Envelope is reminiscent of the Paper Phone experiment Google floated in October last year.

In that equally bizarre experiment, Android users can print out a “Paper Phone” by selecting vital apps like weather, maps, contacts and schedule, which will then be printed onto sheets of paper you can take out into the world with you.

Associated Counsellors & Psychologists Sydney director Dan Auerbach said the Envelope was an “elegant solution” but didn’t address the problem at the core of reducing your screen time.

“It relies on the motivation of the user to limit their use, that’s often the most difficult part,” Mr Auerbach told news.com.au.

“People are not necessarily conscious of the fact they’re dependent on their technology. It’s an elegant solution for those who already have the motivation, but I don’t see it being effective for most people. It will be a niche solution at best.”

The Envelope, as well as Paper Phone, were both dreamt up by London-based design and “invention consultancy” studio Special Projects, which specialises in work that is “conceptually rigorous and blurs the boundaries between industrial, experience and interaction design”, according to its website.

The design firm has done work for other companies like Samsung, the BBC and several secret or undisclosed clients, at least one of which looks to be Disney in addition to Google.

In the spirit of being an experiment, Google has released the code behind the Envelope app so developers can play with and implement it in their own projects.

You can download the envelopes and print them yourself at home, if you actually have a printer in your house for some reason.

One envelope design turns your phone into a stand-alone camera, only able to take photos and videos. You also can't look at the moments you've captured until you take the phone out of the envelope.

Other experimental apps announced alongside Envelope take a simpler approach, giving you unobtrusive but noticeable reminders of how long you spend on your phone.

Activity Bubbles drops a new circle onto your home screen every time you unlock your phone, and the more time you spend on there the bigger they get.

Similarly, Screen Stopwatch lets you put a timer on screen that counts the seconds you spend staring at it.

The new apps are aimed at giving you ways to subtly but consistently remind you of how long you spend looking at your phone.

The Activity Bubbles app adds a new bubble whenever you unlock your phone.

The Screen Stopwatch app counts every second your phone screen is on.

Mr Auerbach said these apps were potentially useful but also wouldn’t be especially helpful to the people who need help the most.

“What that does is help raise awareness, but it doesn’t necessarily do much to combat the addiction,” he said. “If you develop awareness and you’re able to easily turn away from your phone then you probably didn’t have a problem in the first place.”

He said while it could be hard to diagnose technology addictions, true addicts suffer in more ways than feeling bad about looking at Instagram too long.

“Normally, when we look at any addiction we look at: Is it interfering with your life? With smartphones they’re a little bit tricky because in some ways they can help us in our work, wellbeing and social functioning.

“You can’t call it an addiction unless it’s had a detrimental impact on someone’s life, and to some extent that’s a value judgement.

“For some users it’s very clear; they go from being socially connected, sporty, healthy, to foregoing everything in favour of screen time. Or for some they go from relating to their partner to disconnecting into their phones almost completely.”

Ignoring your partner to look at your phone is a sign you could be addicted.

Assessing the impact smartphone use is having on our lives is also complicated further when looking at younger people who have spent their entire adult lives, as well as most of their adolescence, with a smartphone in their pocket.

“Most users are just conditioned to use it, so it’s hard to say whether they’re addicted,” Mr Auerbach said.

“We have to ask ourselves whether they feel compelled to use those devices and whether they have the flexibility to consider other options like sport or socialising.”

Left unchecked, technology addiction can spiral downward and exacerbate other issues.

“They can be reinforcing of each other. If someone’s got a predisposition to anxiety – for example, avoiding direct social interaction, it might become more comfortable for them to use a smartphone to interact, so it can reinforce their avoidance of real-life scenarios, which can lead to depression,” Mr Auerbach warned.

Smartphone addiction can be hard to characterise in young people who have been conditioned to use the devices from a young age.

While setting your phone to remind you how much you’re looking at it can help you stop, it’s also helpful to stop your phone calling out for attention in the first place.

“People who fall into smartphone addiction or gambling addiction in a more serious way find themselves caught up in what we call a variable reinforcement schedule: like in pokie machines, online games or checking your phone. You take an action and sometimes it rewards you with a piece of interesting information, sometimes it doesn’t,” Mr Auerbach explained.

“If you can reduce notifications, that’s likely to be a much better way to limit your interest in checking your phone.”

Android and iOS both let you turn off notifications for all apps at once or for individual apps that cause you the most problems.

There are also other methods you can use to make you realise how much you’re on your phone, including the Digital Wellbeing tools already available in Android.

For iPhone users on iOS 12 or above, similar tools can be found in the Screen Time section of the Settings app.

Turning your phone display black and white is also believed to help cut screen time by reducing the level of immersion and making it easier to look away from the screen, which both operating systems also allow.

Do you think you’re addicted to your phone? Let us know in the comments below.