Taking the internet off the hook

There's literally a switch inside the phone for this, you can detect it being hooked from its actual plug. The elegance from using the phones own hardware is missed in mindlessly bolting on another sensor, leaving the phone nothing but a shell, this detracts so much from the otherwise neat idea of "having a physical device restrict your internet connection."

This is cool!<p>Though there&#x27;s some irony in using a whole separate door sensor for the &quot;off the hook&quot; detection, when the phone already has such a sensor in it... IIRC, when the phone is on the hook, it appears as an open circuit, and when it&#x27;s off the hook, it&#x27;s a closed circuit (current flows)? Not sure of the details, though.

I think it&#x27;s one approach to try to hack your world to resolve the behaviour. It never strikes me as the right one though.<p>We can say we live in a world of endless distractions that keep us from more worthy causes, but we are also choosing to spend our time being distracted. This is stating the obvious, but we must want to be endlessly distracted, otherwise we wouldn&#x27;t do it.<p>Perhaps if that feels like the wrong answer, it is because we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps the proper question is what level of technology is acceptable in our lives.<p>So, for example, we now know that smart phones come with lots of extras, apps, games, finance, social, etc. Lots of apps are also explicitly designed to be addictive. Once you have a phone, it&#x27;s not really possible to close the door to some and allow others, at least not to a satisfactory level.<p>Ultimately, if the technology is not serving you, you have the choice to not use it. You can take the nuclear option, and turn your back on whatever hardware. Perhaps this is the real question - can we turn our back on entertaining, pleasurable technology that wastes our time to some extent, to allow natural physical life back in?

I love it!<p>I suspect the retro metaphor &#x27;do not disturb&#x27; action may feel weird to the young ones, but hits the spot for me. Taking the phone off the hook was a real technique to get yourself some guaranteed heads-down time when POTS was the thing.<p>I love these projects that use technology to manage some of the headaches with our technology-dominated world. To me, they feel artistic, and show there is a line where technology is useful, and where it is a burden.

The phone as just a switch is kind of weird, but there&#x27;s potential here. Consider connecting things up so that, when talking on the phone, mobile or landline, notifications and chimes on the computer are deferred. Give full attention to the human you&#x27;re talking to, without being interrupted by Discord, Slack, SMS, Messenger, email, web site push notifications, etc.<p>Probably a product in that.

This is a great idea, but I think that in the real world, you&#x27;d still have your phone on and on cellular, which then regrettably would defeat the purpose of a single kill switch like this one.