Google has unveiled a Paper Phone it hopes will help reduce people’s addiction from the digital world. The innovation is the latest in the company’s Digital Wellbeing Experiments initiative commissioned in its London design studio.
While the number of people on the internet around the world jumped to 400 million in October 2019 to reach 4.39 billion users, the average person spends about 6 hours and 42 minutes a day using the internet, data from Hootsuite and We Are Social have shown. It equates to more than 100 days of online time – more than 27 percent – every year for every internet consumer.
In Africa where the addition is seen as worse than substance abuse, countries like South Africa and Algeria have opened internet rehab centers to help reduce the prevalence.
“A lot of people feel that they spend too much time on their phones and struggle to find a balance with technology,” the Special Projects team at Google Paper said in a statement. “Phone helps you have a little break away from your digital world by printing a personal booklet of the key information you’ll need that day.”
The Paper Phone requires the Android app to work. Once installed, the app allows you to choose all the information you might need available offline for a day, such as your favorite contacts, weather info, maps, meetings, tasks and even screenshots.
“An app lets you choose what to include such as favourite contacts, maps, and meetings and then prints them directly to a sheet of paper. Customisable “paper apps” like recipes, phrasebooks, and notepads let you get things done or unwind in a more focussed way,” the Google team said.
You then print the information you have selected, fold it up and you are good to go. You also have an option for Google Pay by cutting tiny slots to hold your credit card, like a wallet.
