Klemens Schillinger, a Vienna-based designer, in an effort to counteract the negative effects of smartphone withdrawal during digital detox, has created therapeutic phone-like objects to help us kick our screen-based habits. Our addiction is so strong that a study found 52% of smartphone owners check their devices at least once every 10 minutes, or, as Instagram revealed, users under the age of 25 spend on average 32 minutes a day scrolling, swiping, or typing on their app alone.

The therapeutic phone-like forms, or, as Schillinger calls them, Substitute Phones, attempt to replicate the most used gestures on our smartphones: swiping, zooming, and scrolling. To wean users away from these addictive interactions, Schillinger placed special attention in the selection of his product's materials: heavy black polyoxymethylene plastic (POM) to replicate handset weight, and howlite gemstone beads to mimic the feel of screen-based gestures. "It was the same thing," says Schillinger, "but without the nicotine, just the physical stimulation."

Schillinger's designs aren't alone in this detox trend. Designer Jasper Morrison's Punkt MP01 and the Kickstarted Light Phone are two examples that look to disconnect users. The trend to buck smartphone overuse comes at a time where attention to mental health issues and their relationship to technology is gaining traction. Digital addiction experts like Mandy Saligari compare our smartphone habits to "a bottle of wine or a gram of coke," further underscoring the dangers of overconnectivity, especially with younger children. Although the Punkt MP01 and Light Phone are considered luxury 'dumb-phones', the need for covetable, yet accessible, soft-connected objects in tandem with therapeutic ones is now becoming more apparent than ever.

Written for Canvas8 by Zach Soudan as a behavioral analyst.