The Reboot
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The Methaphone

The Methaphone

Randy Ginsburg
May 28, 2025

Welcome to the 24 new readers who have joined us since last week! If you haven’t subscribed, join 2400+ smart, curious folks by subscribing here:

A few exciting announcements before we jump in…

1) Another great Kanso Here & Now experience in the books. Teamed up with Sprout Society to bring 35 beautiful people into one room, with all phones checked at the door. Shout out to the crew at Novos and The Plug Drink for keeping us hydrated and healthy, and Meople Connection Cards for bringing us closer together.

If you attended (or are just curious), you can check out some photos of the event here.

2) Here & Now is expanding! San Francisco next. June 25th. Come unplug & hang.

3) I’m looking for a freelance social media strategist to help blow up our events across Instagram/TT (ironic, I know). If that’s you, shoot me a message.

Let’s get to it.

Like most idea guys, I’ve got a long, chaotic list of Notes app thoughts. Business ideas, sentences I might turn into essays, stray observations about people on the subway. The usual.

A few months ago, I opened up my notes app and ‘jotted down’ a simple question.

‘What is the nicotine patch to smartphone addiction?’

It sat there collecting dust ever since.

Until…a few days ago, a friend sent me this TikTok.

@askcatgpt
Completely clear phone spotted in San Francisco on May 14…?!? Wtf?????? 🤭🤫 Link in bio for more deets. (NOT SPONSORED)

It broke the internet with 26 million views on the original video (and millions more across the internet) over two days.

The viral clip shows a woman in San Francisco standing in line holding what appeared to be a completely transparent smartphone, with no images or UI.

At first glance, people assumed it was a prototype or maybe CGI. But it wasn’t.

In a follow-up video, the woman (@CatGPT on TikTok) explained that the object was just a clear block of acrylic. Her friend had created it as an experiment, dubbing it the Methaphone.

@askcatgpt
I’m sending out a batch of methaphones to people who have ideas for (safe) social experiments they’d like to run with them— break it out o... See more

According to the TikToker, the ‘Methapone’ was created by her friend to replicate what it feels like to hold a smartphone in your hand in an effort to help curb phone addiction.

The creator wanted to know: if so much of our phone addiction is muscle memory, what happens if you replace the object but not the action?

In other words, what happens if you cut the cord between the ritual and the reward?

And that’s what stuck with me. Most people, when they talk about phone addiction, point to the apps. They blame TikTok, or Instagram, or whatever algorithm is most efficient at hijacking your brain chemistry.

But the apps aren’t the first domino. The reach is.

If you talk to people who’ve tried to quit smoking, they’ll tell you that the hardest part isn’t losing the nicotine, but rather the ritual of smoking.

That’s why “vapes” like Fum (essentially a vape shaped device where you suck in oxygen instead of vapor) still sell.

It removes the chemical but still gives them the oral fixation.

Same thing here.

While most of us are addicted to the consumption of information, there are a lot of other reasons we reach for our phones. Checking it to avoid sitting in silence, looking weird in line, or feeling like everyone else is doing something and you’re just... there.

The Methaphone doesn’t truly solve that. But it does expose it and shows how deep the muscle memory goes. How much of our time is just us running a loop we didn’t design.

But I can’t stop thinking about it. Most “solutions” to screen time try to get you to use your phone better. This one tries to get you to look at your phone use and ask: what the hell am I actually doing?

I see it every time I run a phone-free Kanso experience.

We make everyone check their phones at the door. Within minutes, people start patting their pockets, looking down at empty hands, glancing toward the table where the phones are locked up.

It’s one of the few times when they truly realize their dependence on picking up a silly little black mirror every 2 minutes. Phantom limb syndrome at its finest.

That’s what makes this stuff harder than people think. You can’t fix a behavioral loop by deleting Instagram or setting a time limit.

Why now? What are you avoiding? What are you craving?

Is it boredom? Awkwardness? The discomfort of not having a task? Validation? The fear of seeming idle?

If you never sit with that feeling, you never interrupt it. You just reroute it. Delete one app, open another. Swap TikTok for email. Instagram for podcasts. Nothing changes but the app icon.

The point isn’t to never reach. It’s to know why you’re reaching.

If you’re looking to improve your digital wellness, here are a few places to start:

Kanso Experiences - Unforgettable phone-free social experiences for ambitious people who are tired of the feed and hungry for real relationships.

Kanso Reset45 Cohorts - A cohort-based bootcamp to reprogram your tech habits in 45 days. If you’re interested in joining our next cohort starting June 17th, reply to this email.

Kanso 1:1 Digital Wellness Coaching - Personalized, high-touch coaching to help you take control of your tech use. Get daily accountability, habit tracking, and expert guidance to reduce screen time, stay focused, and build a more intentional digital life.

The Digital Reset Journal - A guided daily journal to help you rethink your tech use, stay present, and build healthier daily habits.