This 3D-printed Phone Case Protects Users from Their Digital Addiction

If your New Year's resolution was to spend more time in the real world and less time on your smartphone mindlessly searching, liking, scrolling, emailing or comparing yourself to perfect social-media celebrities, then the Dumb Phone Case is for you. The perfect analog solution to digital addiction, the Dumb Phone Case protects users from their phones by physically restricting access.

A physical case that sits over the screen, the free 3D-printed Dumb Phone Case limits usage to just the number keypad, transforming a smartphone to a ‘dumb phone’, which only functions as an actual phone. Enabling the phone-addicted to focus on what’s actually happening around them.

No more scrolling through Instagrams already seen 40 times, or re-watching Snapchat stories over and over - now users can be normal humans again. But fear not, if that elevator ride or meeting gets boring one only has to unclip the phone case to return their smartphone to normal functionality.

Anyone can download the file and 3D print their own Dumb Phone Case for free now at http://dumbphonecase.com. Designed by Jeff Lam, an Interactive Art Director at Wieden+KennedyAmsterdam, the case ispurposefully free in order to help others who may be suffering from the effects of over smartphone usage.  

Lam says: “As any owner of a smartphone knows, it’s easy to get addicted to the massive potential of the phone. I realized that I was getting caught up with checking my phone constantly. Whether it was for new emails, likes on Instagram, checking who's posting new snaps or looking for updates on Facebook, I knew I needed a way to remind myself to not look at my phone without leaving it at home. When looking for solutions, I came up empty, so I decided to makeone.”

The printable STL file for the Dumb Phone Case is currently only available for iPhone 6, however versions for 

iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 5 are currently being produced. Depending on demand, Android versions may also be available in future. 

Smart phone → Dumb human. Dumb phone → Smart human?