The technodangle
Most carry decisions make practical sense. You are schlepping. The city acts without apology. Things should be lightweight, deft, scalable for complexity. You are never carrying the thing, only the stuff within the thing.
Meanwhile, your phone increases in size over time – slowly and then all at once. The next iPhone is supposed to be 0.1” larger than this one. This iPhone was 0.1” larger than last year’s. At this rate, in 30 years, you will use a mouse and physical keyboard to call people. But for now your iPhone is just distressing, especially relative to the last one that was ever acceptably sized. It exists in a liminal space between true handholding and mini-tablet, and of course it is an ergonomic disaster.
Enter the lanyard.
Your iPhone is now hung from your neck. You are at a tech conference. You can never turn it off. The always-on wallpaper and custom lock screens have never mattered more. In order to pair appropriately with various outfits, you select ten of them, each a different color.
Every lanyard has a different strap. You waffle between leather, nylon, blue, white. White would get dirty too fast. Every lanyard has a different case; most are plastic. Some are clear; those yellow over time. Plenty of options work, though.
I want to be abundantly clear that this is not a tiny sling, nor is it a wallet with a neck strap. This is literally a way of transparently carrying your phone, and only your phone, on a 1/4” cord that goes around your neck, and hangs right below your chest. It is a Flavor Flav clock of technology. The phone is shown off. “Look at me, universe, I have an iPhone,” you are saying, to absolutely nobody, because we all have one of those, too.
There is, of course, the element of convenience. The phone is right there. When the phone gets too big for a pocket, and you (correctly) want your phone to have absolute primacy over the accessibility of all other objects, the lanyard is not on face a bad idea. But then questions arise on how the thing is used and worn simultaneously. The cord’s length seems to always exist in that baffling middle ground where the phone is wearable and noticeable, but holding, swiping, and typing are challenging, awkward pursuits.
Still, the phone is there, like a rectangular albatross. It somehow walks the coolness ridge between importance (phone must be touching me at all times) and nonchalance (phone is dangling, upside down). If notifications go off, the first one to see them is somebody else, broadcasting to the world: look. I am desired. Something is _pinging me.
The phone lanyard demands exclusivity. Carrying anything else becomes awkward: desire to use your phone, and you will quickly find yourself contending with a tangled mess. In due time, we’ll hold our phone and nothing else, we think, as we continue to schlep, phone dangling, unthinking.