Credit: Matter Neuroscience/Cover Images A content creator may have found the cure for screen addiction — by making his phone too heavy to hold. Logan Ivey, who runs the Instagram account @matterneuroscience, designed and 3D-printed a six-pound stainless steel phone case that he says has helped him cut his daily screen time by more than half. The chunky gadget, created under his project Matter Neuroscience, has become a viral sensation — with his Instagram reel about the case, posted on October 13, 2025, racking up more than 450,000 likes. The concept is as simple as it is extreme: make the smartphone so heavy and inconvenient that using it becomes a workout. The 6 Pound Phone Case consists of two solid stainless steel parts that screw together around the device using an Allen wrench — meaning you can remove it, but not easily when the temptation to scroll strikes. “The idea is that a six-pound phone is physically too heavy to scroll on for long periods of time, and as a result, you'll naturally have less screen time,” Ivey wrote in his post. “You can't as easily take it with you to the bathroom or on a walk. You have to actually leave it behind more often, which also means less screen time.” Before arriving at the final design, Ivey experimented with taping a dumbbell to his phone — an experiment that quickly revealed practical flaws. “I had this idea that if I taped my phone case to this five-pound dumbbell, then I would use my phone less,” he explained in his video. But the bulky dumbbell covered the camera and was too easy to remove, so he spent two months developing a sleeker, more integrated solution. The finished case features precise openings for the charging port, volume, and power buttons, while keeping the camera unobstructed. Its stainless steel frame gives it the nostalgic look of a 1980s brick phone — the era that inspired Ivey’s design. “Back in the '80s, phones were just tools and not addicting fake dopamine machines,” he said. Weighing about as much as a small dumbbell, the case makes holding a phone for long periods uncomfortable, forcing users to set it down after short use. “Isn’t it wild that this video is blowing up because we all realise smartphones are a f**king problem,” Ivey remarked. Ivey says the heavy-duty case has saved him from two to three hours of scrolling a day, and the design team behind Matter Neuroscience believes the concept could help others do the same. For now, the 6 Pound Phone Case is compatible with iPhone models 13 through 17 — including regular, Pro, and Pro Max versions — with deliveries expected to begin in December 2025. Ivey summed it up that the point isn’t to banish smartphones entirely, but to make them feel more like tools again. The hefty case, he said, is designed to make the phone feel “like your laptop or your camera,” rather than “something that you instinctively pick up, and look at, for hours at a time.”