Introducing our new series: Digital Detox Friends. This series focuses on analogue, digital detox-inspired products, which we at Time To Log Off think help users find a better relationship with technology. We personally never recommend using apps to help you cut down your tech time – it’s totally counter-intuitive to us. Instead, we’ve teamed up with the brains behind a range of fantastic products which will help you on your digital detox journey to a better online:offline balance.
Our first digital detox friend is Punkt, designers of the MP o1 phone. The guys at Punkt have written the following guest post for us on the benefits of using their analogue phone on holiday.
More and more of us are starting to re-examine our relationship with technology, and in particular, whether we really want to always be at our smartphone’s beck and call. Especially when we’re on holiday. Because if after all that time spent on trains, planes and automobiles it’s still the centre of our lives, have we really gone somewhere new? We’re still where we were before: in front of our phone. ‘Going’ to the same websites. Having the same kinds of virtual experiences. Doing what we always do.
The alternative: add a sprinkling of digital detox. Take a simple phone instead, and be somewhere else.
Most of the simple phones available are either old-fashioned or just plain old, dug out from the back of a cupboard. But fortunately for anyone who isn’t drawn to noughties retro tech, a phone is available that is stylish, well-built and thoroughly up-to-date, but still has impeccable manners: it will only disturb you if another human being has decided to either ring you up or send you a text message.
The MP 01 mobile phone from Punkt. is the work of London-based designer Jasper Morrison, whose creations has won him critical acclaim from around the world. Like any simple phone, it liberates its owner from that twitchy feeling in the afternoon: ‘where will I be able to plug in?’ Unlike most, if not all, other simple phones, it is classy and solidly put together. It is created in small production runs, using topquality components (e.g. Gorilla Glass), and this is reflected in the price. Much like a mid-priced wristwatch, it’s for people who are prepared to invest in quality. And it is a product for the long-term, rather than something that is becoming obsolete even before it comes out of the box.
The Punkt. MP 01 retails at £ 229 | € 295 | CHF 329 | $ 295. You can buy a white or brown Punkt. MP 01 and get a free leather case until the end of July 2017.
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Will you be taking the Punkt MP o1 phone on your summer holidays? We think they off er the fantastic benefit of being able to remove moving all social media and email temptations, whilst still being able to make calls to friends and family back home if you need to. Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming Digital Detox Friends features, we’ve got lots more digital detox inspired products to share with you.
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