A Design To Help Forget Your Phone, Remember Your Friends
In the recent documentary Connected, filmmaker Tiffany Shlain talks about going to visit an old friend she hasn’t seen in years. They’re at a bar talking, laughing, and having a great time—and Shlain has flown all the way across the country for this moment—but she still can’t fight the urge to check her email. Finally,…
In the recent documentary Connected, filmmaker Tiffany Shlain talks about going to visit an old friend she hasn’t seen in years. They’re at a bar talking, laughing, and having a great time—and Shlain has flown all the way across the country for this moment—but she still can’t fight the urge to check her email. Finally, she sneaks into a bathroom stall to look at her phone. How many of us with smartphones feel similarly addicted to our devices?
People are coming up with more and more hacks to get away from our own technology, whether that’s hiding your phone in a drawer on Friday night or taking every urge to check your email as a cue to meditate. Now designers are starting to think about the problem more, too. This music player from Taiwanese Pega Design, called “Happy Together,” invites party guests to plug their phone in. The more phones, the richer the music—each phone cues another layer of a song. In theory, people have an incentive to get their phones publicly out of reach, and concentrate on their friends.
I wonder what other designs will be inspired by the need to cure technology addiction. Will there be apps to help keep us away from our phones?
Reddit user Girlfriendhatesmefor’s three-year-old pitbull, Otis, had recently become overprotective of his wife. So he asked the online community if they knew what might be wrong with the dog.
“A week or two ago, my wife got some sort of stomach bug,” the Reddit user wrote under the subreddit /r/dogs. “She was really nauseous and ill for about a week. Otis is very in tune with her emotions (we once got in a fight and she was upset, I swear he was staring daggers at me lol) and during this time didn’t even want to leave her to go on walks. We thought it was adorable!”
His wife soon felt better, butthe dog’s behavior didn’t change.
Girlfriendhatesmefor began to fear that Otis’ behavior may be an early sign of an aggression issue or an indication that the dog was hurt or sick.
So he threw a question out to fellow Reddit users: “Has anyone else’s dog suddenly developed attachment/aggression issues? Any and all advice appreciated, even if it’s that we’re being paranoid!”
The most popular response to his thread was by ZZBC.
Any chance your wife is pregnant?
ZZBC | Reddit
The potential news hit Girlfriendhatesmefor like a ton of bricks. A few days later, Girlfriendhatesmefor posted an update and ZZBC was right!
“The wifey is pregnant!” the father-to-be wrote. “Otis is still being overprotective but it all makes sense now! Thanks for all the advice and kind words! Sorry for the delayed reply, I didn’t check back until just now!”
Redditors responded with similar experiences.
Anecdotal I know but I swear my dog knew I was pregnant before I was. He was super clingy (more than normal) and was always resting his head on my belly.
realityisworse | Reddit
So why do dogs get overprotective when someone is pregnant?
Jeff Werber, PhD, president and chief veterinarian of the Century Veterinary Group in Los Angeles, told Health.com that “dogs can also smell the hormonal changes going on in a woman’s body at that time.” He added the dog may “not understand that this new scent of your skin and breath is caused by a developing baby, but they will know that something is different with you—which might cause them to be more curious or attentive.”
The big lesson here is to listen to your pets and to ask questions when their behavior abruptly changes. They may be trying to tell you something, and the news may be life-changing.
Throughout history, women have stood up and fought to break down barriers imposed on them from stereotypes and societal expectations. The trailblazers in these photos made history and redefined what a woman could be. In doing so, they paved the way for future generations to stand up and continue to fight for equality.
While conspiracy theories are not limited to any topic, there is one type of event that seems particularly likely to spark them: mass shootings, typically defined as attacks in which a shooter kills at least four other people.
When one person kills many others in a single incident, particularly when it seems random, people naturally seek out answers for why the tragedy happened. After all, if a mass shooting is random, anyone can be a target.
