Hey, this is Mike. Before we start, I want to share some exciting news with you. We're doing a live show in San Francisco on September 9th in partnership with the local station KQED.

Lauren and I will sit down with our editor-in-chief, Katie Drummond, and we'll have a special guest joining us for a conversation that you will not want to miss.

You can use the link in the show notes to grab your ticket and invite a friend.

We cannot wait to see you there.

Lauren, how you doing?

I am great.

I made a little late-night purchase last night when I was browsing on the internet.

You made a late-night purchase?

Uh-huh. Do you want to know what it is? Yes. It's not what Reese talked about before. night purchase last night when I was browsing on the internet. You made a late night purchase?

Uh-huh. Do you want to know what it is? Yes. It's not what Reese talked about before on this show.

Okay. What is it? I bought a brick. You bought a brick? Yeah. Do you know what a brick is? Yeah. It's a thing that they use many of to build buildings.

Not that. It's a little silicone device that you attach to your fridge or some other surface in your home that's away from your bedroom. And then you tap your phone to it at night and it automatically disables certain apps that you've preset it to.

So then when you get into bed, you're not doom scrolling on your phone because you literally cannot access those apps. It's a physical block. So it bricks your phone? Bricks your phone. Well, that's cool. Yeah, I heard our colleague Adrian talking about it a bunch and I was like, you know what? I'm going to do it. So what happens if there's like an emergency? You die. But you know what? You're not scrolling Instagram Reels when you do it. You wouldn't know

because your phone doesn't light up. It's just bliss from, yes, you go to phone heaven. Well, that sounds

very much on topic for today's show. It is. I really think we should talk about this because

our phone addictions and our internet

addictions are getting worse and we've got to figure out the future. We do. So let's get

started. This is Wired's Uncanny Valley, a show about the people, power, and influence of Silicon

Valley. Today we are talking about the future of unplugging. Going off the grid,

being offline, whatever you want to call it, it remains an aspirational goal for many of us. Apps

like Opel and even physical devices like Lawrence Brick, which temporarily block distracting apps

from your phone are becoming increasingly popular.

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