To hide my phone?

What is it?

One of Google’s Digital Wellbeing Experiments,

‘Envelope’ ( www. snipca.com/33923) is a paper case that you print and stick your phone inside. You then can’t see the screen or use apps, but buttons glow through for you to make phone calls and apparently, it says here, even take photos. Of what, you’ll presumably find out later.

What does it do?

The idea is that it gives you a break from obsessively using your phone to check social media, play games, access all the world’s repositories of knowledge and so on.

What’s the catch?

It’s all catch, really, isn’t it? But people have been talking for years about how we use our mobile-phone screens too much. The Envelope’s designers refer to “a trend where people buy a second, simpler phone for holidays and weekends”, which is certainly not a trend round our way.

None of the attempts to launch cut-down ‘second phones’ have caught on. However, the Digital Wellbeing feature in Android and Screen Time in Apple’s IOS both help by reminding you how long you’ve spent on your phone, ‘pausing’ distracting apps while you focus on something else, turning off notifications at night, and so on.

Trying these could make sense. Then again, some people find their phones or tablets invaluable for keeping in touch with life and occupying the mind. Despite scare stories, research doesn’t support the theory that screen time is bad for you.

So can I do without it?

Yes. just turn off your phone instead.