A Light in the Dark
I have a story to tell.
One Sunday I sat in my favorite armchair in a Portland coffee shop, reading my book I had pushed aside over and over. Turns out it wasn't that interesting a book anyway. Figures.
The door chime rang.
I raised my head to look. It's always fun to see the next character who walks in the door. You see all sorts of people here, but no matter who they are, they always need their coffee.
Coffee is the great equalizer.
People my age had entered the shop. One of them, a pretty girl with freckles on her face and sunglasses came to the counter with her phone in hand. She asked the barista for a drink (I didn't hear what) and he popped his head out as though he were hiding behind the espresso machine. As she waited her friends stood behind her in line, eyes glued to their phones. None of them spoke to each other though they had clearly come together in the same car.
None of this was particularly out of the ordinary. Over in the corner a women played with her little son and his toy train, a young man sat at the counter appearing to be writing code on his laptop, and two other groups sat at tables laughing and talking occasionally, exchanging smiles but staring at their phones between sentences. All was normal.
Then it happened.
First the young man at the counter appeared agitated, tapping frustratingly on his trackpad. He got up to talk with the barista, who appeared to apologize to him, then promptly retreated to a small room in the back.
"It's the internet" I thought.
Up sat one person in the corner, staring at their phone. After a moment of hesitation they headed toward the door. As they left another followed. I looked to the group with the freckled girl, who had sat at a couch along the wall. They hadnt said a word to each other. Without speaking they sat up in unison and left. One by one more and more people walked out the door until the mother with her son and I were the only ones left.
I looked at my phone. "No signal" it read.
Ah.
So that's why.
“...reaching out for a device becomes so natural that we start to forget that there is a reason, a good reason, to sit still with our thoughts.”
It feels like products today are designed to distract us from our lives. Each screen cultivates addictive behaviors that rob us of meaningful experiences and they encourage us to avoid being present with the people around us.
I'm holding in my hand The Light Phone.
It's a simple idea, that started with a Kickstarter campaign to make a phone that isn't designed to distract from the real world.
The Light Phone is as small as a credit card. As an object it rests as a slab of white, smooth on each side, and reveals its interface only when it's needed.
It doesn't ask you for attention.
It's remarkably unremarkable.
Setting up the light phone is so simple, at first I thought I had done something wrong. I kid you not, after call forwarding was complete I checked the manual several times to make sure. I was shocked.
I've become so used to the complexity of these devices that claim to "make your life better" that I forgot what it was like to use something so simple.
The phone supports speed dialing up to 9 contacts, answers and receives calls, and you can check your voicemail that’s shared with your smartphone.
It's dead simple.
In a world where every device is meant to create addicts out of their users, it's a literal breath of fresh air to see a company like Light that thinks about what is essential to communication, by simply getting out of the way.
I went to the beach with friends last weekend. I turned off my smartphone, and carried only my light phone with me.
In short, it was freedom.
