Smartphones Double as Coasters To Encourage Intimacy Among Friends

   By SheSpeaksTeam  Apr 04, 2014

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If your smartphone often gets in the way of good conversation with friends, then you may want to check out a new product that can help you ignore that text, email, or urge to check your Facebook. Keeping your hands off the iPhone may sound like a simple enough task, but many of us have little self control and may even manage to offend friends and loved ones when we constantly glance down at that little beacon of connectivity while on a date or attending a social event.

Tech Crunch’s John Biggs reports about a new glass, called the Offline Glass, created by the Fischer and Friends Ad Agency in Brazil that has a little iPhone sized notch chipped out of the bottom of it so that your smartphone stay neatly tucked under your beer when conversing with friends. The glass will only stay upright if you have a smartphone resting underneath. Of course you can still reach for your phone while holding the drink in your hand, but the makers think it will probably lead to less phone fiddling and more face to face time with friends.

Though the glass is currently not for sale and only in use at one bar in Brazil, Biggs explains how there are other ways to encourage friends to temporarily ignore their phones in social situations. He says, “Whenever I go out with the TC team I make everyone play the phone game which consists of piling up all the phones in one place so no one can reach them. It helps encourage conversation and, unless they’re wearing Google Glass, the pained expression after the first few minutes of the game is mesmerizing. Here’s to anything that helps recreate that experience.”

Do you or your friends have a hard time putting the smartphone away in social situations?

Do you have any tricks to get your friends to ignore their phones while socializing?