We’ve all said we should spend less time on our phones, then end up reaching for them anyway. One neuroscience startup decided to make that impossible. Their solution weighs six pounds and requires an Allen wrench to remove.
Matter Neuroscience calls it the 6-Pound Phone Case, a stainless-steel brick designed to make your phone so inconvenient you’ll eventually stop checking it. The case clamps around your device, making it too heavy for one hand and too bulky for a pocket. “At six pounds, your hands and arms physically get tired while using it,” the creators wrote on their Kickstarter page. “That fatigue reminds you to put the phone down.”
The company admits the idea started as a joke. But when early testers reported cutting their screen time nearly in half, that’s when it became a real business plan. The $210 case is made from solid steel, or brass if you want something even heavier and twice the price. It fits iPhone models 13 through 17 and arrives with an Allen wrench because removing it requires unscrewing two separate metal plates. If that sounds like a hassle, that’s exactly the point.
Matter Neuroscience argues that most modern tools to reduce phone addiction don’t work because they rely on willpower or software limits. “Lockboxes are too easy to give up on,” the team wrote. “Screen time limits are too easy to ignore.” Their approach is physical, not digital. You can still call, text, and scroll…just not for long.
Introducing the 6-Pound Phone Case
The design mimics the chunky brick phones of the 1980s, back when carrying a phone required effort, and conversation still happened face to face. The company says its goal is to “make your phone a tool again.” They reference research linking heavy smartphone use to lower mood and disrupted brain chemistry, claiming the case encourages the kind of “real-world” interactions that produce serotonin, oxytocin, and other natural feel-good chemicals.
It’s an oddly poetic solution: fight dopamine with gravity. At six pounds, your notifications start to feel less urgent, your arm starts to ache, and your phone becomes what it once was—a machine you occasionally use, not an extension of your nervous system.
Whether anyone will actually pay $210 to make their life harder remains to be seen. The Kickstarter campaign has raised around $17,000 toward its $75,000 goal. But for anyone ready to break the habit by brute force, this could do the trick.
The post Addicted to Scrolling? This 6-Pound Phone Case Might Help. appeared first on VICE.
