My first experience with Yondr was back in 2019, when I was invited to be a speaker at an off-site conference for a financial company that was using Yondr pouches to create a phone-free space for the attendees. At the beginning of each session, we were asked to put our phones into small, lockable pouches—and to keep them there for the duration of the session. As you can imagine, I loved this idea, but I remember watching grown men (the conference was mostly men) getting extremely grumpy about it.
“I’m a grown adult,” I remember one man saying. “I don’t have to be forced to put away my phone.”
The same man then spent the entire session — as did many other attendees — with the phone pouch clutched in his hand in the same way that a child holds on to a security blankie, unable to physically separate himself from his device even though, technically speaking, he couldn’t use it. I remember thinking: someone should get that guy a a teddy bear.
Fast forward to today
Yondr pouches are everywhere. Comedians and musicians such as Dave Chapelle and Alicia Keys use them to protect their IP and create a more magical experience for their fans. And, more recently, there has been an explosion—the founder of Yondr, Graham Dugoni, called it a “sea change”— in the number of schools that are using Yondr pouches to help them go phone-free, thanks in large part to Jon Haidt’s internationally bestselling book, The Anxious Generation. (I’m a collaborator on Jon’s team, which has given me a global view of just how quickly the shift to phone-free schools is happening—and it is truly inspiring.)
I’ve long been fascinated by the concept of Yondr pouches and what the need for their existence says about where we are as a society—and how much the world has changed since the introduction of the first smartphone in 2007. So I was excited when, last spring, I had the opportunity to meet the founder of Yondr, Graham Dugoni, in person when he was visiting New York.
Our conversation got pretty existential pretty quickly, and it became clear to me that Graham, who founded Yondr in 2014, thinks about technology and its impact on human existence in a way that’s much deeper than the grumpy guy at the conference might have expected. So I was thrilled when Graham agreed to join me on the How to Feel Alive podcast. Because that’s what he and I ultimately ended up talking about: how to feel alive.
I loved the entire conversation, but I particularly enjoyed Graham’s description of the feedback he and his team have gathered from schools that have gone phone-free.
And I particularly enjoyed the second half of our conversation, where we went beyond the basics of what Yondr pouches are and how they work, and talked about the magical experiences that can happen when people are fully present with each other, and why we both feel that there is a need for society to create phone-free spaces for everyone, not just kids.
You can listen to the whole episode above (or on your favorite podcast platform!) but I’ve included clips of some of my favorite parts below. I hope you find it as thought-provoking and inspiring as I did.
What is a Yondr pouch?
In which Graham describes—and displays—a Yondr pouch and explains how it works.
What Happens When Schools Go Phone-Free?
I think most of us would intuitively guess that if you take phones out of classrooms, students will be less distracted and teachers will have more time to, you know, teach. But when schools go phone-free from bell to bell (i.e. during lunch and recess, too), the effects can be even more powerful—and in ways you wouldn’t necessarily predict.
The more I think about the concept of phone-free schools, the more excited I get — because if you get into a routine of putting your phone away during the school day, it sets the stage for healthier tech habits for the rest of your life. Imagine what might happen when these “phone-free natives” (to adapt the current terminology of “digital natives”) get into the work force: they’ll have had years’ worth of experience putting their phones away when they’re trying to be present or to get work done. Maybe they’ll teach us how to have better habits and etiquette around our devices!
Please share this post with people who are on the fence—or merely just curious —about what happens if you get phones out of schools.
Why do we need phone-free spaces to begin with?
I was very interested in learning more about what inspired Graham to found Yondr back in 2014, at a time in which most people—myself included—had not yet begun to think about how smartphones, social media, and other mobile devices and technologies were impacting our experience of our lives. (As context, remember that the first iPhone was only introduced in 2007, Instagram was founded in 2011, and TikTok wasn’t even available in the United States till 2016.)
He made the case that, as a society, we should be carving out phone-free spaces (for kids and adults) where we can experience things in a “primary” way—a similar concept, in a way, as putting aside public land as National Parks. In his view, living in a world where, at any moment, someone could record you and post the video online has a “totally neutralizing effect on people’s ability to express themselves” because, as he put it, “there’s no such thing as intimacy without privacy.”
Optimism for the Future
It can be easy to feel like it’s futile to resist — or even question — the continued infiltration of technology into our lives, especially as AI becomes more pervasive (and persuasive). But when I asked Graham if he had any final thoughts to share, he ended on a note of true optimism about where things currently stand, and how the conversation around technology and the human experience has changed over the past ten years. It left me feeling optimistic, both for my own generation—and for my daughter’s. We do have the ability to course correct, and collective action can be easier than we think.
Go on and listen already.
The conversation left me with so many thoughts and insights that I realized I couldn’t put them all in one post, lest I get diverted directly into your spam folder. (Not that spam filters care about email length, but I just fear I’ll get punished in some way for sending you more than a “5-minute read.”)
My point being: get ready for a follow-up post about some of my favorite parts of this conversation. Also, as a thank you to my paid subscribers, I made a video clip of the part of our conversation where I asked Graham about his own tech habits — which I found thought-provoking and inspiring, and suspect you will as well (even if you’re not someone who’s going to go back to a full-on flip phone). So look for that in a separate email if you’re a current paid subscriber, or in your welcome email if you become one.
And now I’m off to attempt to put my money where my mouth is by shutting this computer, putting my phone into my bag, and spending a few hours being present in the physical world. (Feel free to join me!)
To scrolling less, living more, and taking a break from being connected every now and then,
Meet Yondr founder & CEO, Graham Dugoni