Google Envelope Will Give You the Phone Detox You Need

Whether you want to admit it or not, a phone detox is in order from time to time. Your smartphone may very well be the most important device in your life right now – both for personal use and professional purposes – but studies have shown that detoxing from tech, in general, has its benefits. Oh, and common sense tells us that, too. Enter Google Envelope.

The core idea is not a novel one. iOS users are, by now, very familiar with Screen Time, which allows you to monitor the amount of time you spend on your phone. The aim being you control that time and lessen your dependency on the device.

Google is taking things a notch higher with the Google Envelope.

Coming from the tech giant’s digital wellbeing special projects, Google Envelope is “an experimental app which temporarily transforms your phone into a simpler, calmer device, helping you to take a break away from your digital world”. Experimental it may be, it’s so simple that it’s brilliant.

How does it work?

Very much in the spirit of things, you have to print a PDF provided by the app. You then do some paper folding so that you end up with – you got it, an envelope.

You put your phone in the envelope and seal it.

Now you have a physical barrier between yourself and your phone. You can still use it for essential things like making and receiving calls and checking the time.

Simple, yeah?

Caveat: It only works on Pixel 3A phones, though.

Check out the video from the makers of Google Envelope and decide for yourself if you feel like giving it a try.

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