︎  Reversing Nomophobia


Addressing the a fear of not having your phone
By Wan-yu (Risa) Hung ︎ 


Hypothesis

10 years ago, when Apple launched the first iPhone is started to change people’s daily life. Smartphones have become more and more important to people nowadays. Problematic smartphone use is an emerging public health problem since then. It create different effects on psychological aspects (such as poor memory, concentration and decision-making, anxiety, procrastination, and sleep disturbance), social aspects (such as the negative impact on relationships and loss of sense of community), and physical aspects (such as harm from accidents, repetitive strain injury (RSI) and posturmy). How design can help smartphone heavy user, who is defined as an inability to regulate the use of the mobile phone, which eventually involves negative consequences in daily life?


  • Why?
Company, government, employee and employers

  • How?
    Context: Restaurant
    • Abstention giving up terms of time a smartphone is used
    • Moderating use

  • What?
Product
• App Forest (Game theory)
• The interactive dining table

Interior & Architecture
• Differentiate the space with/without Internet
• Increase interaction w/ surroundings + others

  • So What?
• Higher satisfaction for the dining experience
• More and closer interaction between people
• Detachment to negative impacts caused by smartphone use


The design of the restaurant for smartphone heavy users.


Design to Outcomes
Implementing products (app and tables) and careful interior / architecture design in the restaurant with smartphone heavy users even the normal use people will improve the satisfaction for the dining experience, decrease the feeling of isolation, increase people’s closer interaction during eating in the short-term and detach from negative impacts caused by problematic smartphone use in the long-term.

︎
Works Cited
1.van Velthoven, M. H., Powell, J., & Powell, G. (2018). Problematic smart-phone use. Digital approaches to an emerging public health problem. Digital health, 4, 20055207618759167. dio:10.1177/2055207618759167
2. Ofcom. The communications market report. 2016. [accessed 02.2.2020]  Available at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/multi-sector-research-and -data/cmr/cmr16.
3. Russo M, Morandin G, Bergami M. Surviving a Day Without Smartphones ,MIT Sloan Management Review. 2017 [accessed 10 Feb 2020]. Available at: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/surviving-a-day-without-smartphones/


Mark