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Inviting Guests To A Party Without Inviting Their Phones

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The idea couldn't have come at a better moment. Last week we were struggling to find an interesting but humane way to keep 150 people off their digital devices at my son's bar mitzvah party. After months of hard work and planning, the last thing we wanted was a bunch of drones on phones Snapchatting and checking Cubs scores instead of actually celebrating with us.

That's when I saw the New York Times article about Yondr. The piece introduced us to the form-fitting lockable pouches that some comedy clubs use to stop fans from shooting video or posting Facebook updates during standup performances. Dave Chappelle is a Yondr devotee. So are musicians such as Alicia Keys, Guns N' Roses and Maxwell. Like us, they all want a crowd that's really there, not one that's half listening or only concerned about collecting cool images to post and tweet.

Yondr pouches are typically distributed as guests enter an event. Users keep the pouch with them but can't use the phones while the pouch is locked. If people feel the device vibrate (phones are silenced before going into the sleeves), they can head back to the Yondr station to quickly unlock the pouch so they can take the call or check texts or email outside the phone-free area.

A day after the Times story I sent a note to Yondr inquiring about the pouches and got a note asking if I'd like to meet with Yondr founder Graham Dugoni. When I arrived for coffee early that next day, Dugoni was already there, waiting for me patiently, and without a phone in his hands. At 29, the tall, blond CEO possesses traits not normally associated with people of his generation. He's big on eye contact and seemed less concerned about touting his company than in having a meaningful conversation about his favorite philosophers of technology, like Albert Borgmann. "Borgmann's interested in the idea that technology is changing the ways we interact with each other," Dugoni says.

Dugoni grew up in Portland, Oregon, and studied politics at Duke before heading off to teach English in Vietnam and later play soccer in Norway. He came up with the Yondr idea in 2013 after attending a concert in San Francisco, where he now lives. He spotted some people videotaping a guy dancing drunk. The strangers later posted the video to Youtube without consent, Dugoni says. "The constant drive to chronicle every moment and share it is a kind of cultural illness," he says.

Using $15,000 in savings, Dugoni built a Yondr prototype in 2014. He later raised $100,000 from angel investors back in Portland and in 2015 raised another $75,000. The company earns income by renting the cases for $2 each at events.

On the eve of Sebastian's bar mitzvah this past weekend, Yondr shipped 100 pouches to the Los Angeles venue and sent an attendant to check phones in and out. The plan was to "encourage" rather than demand guests lock down their phones.

My prediction was, the kids would revolt. We had 75 young teens on the party list, many of whom didn't know each other, and the awkwardness levels would be off the charts. That population relies on screens in social situations the way my caterer counts on unemployed actors to serve the Shirley Temples. It's a norm at bar mitzvahs for kids to self-select into small clusters and gather around their electronics. After all, how can the world possibly know a friend is becoming a Jewish man unless it shows up on dozens of Instagram feeds?

But it was the adults who turned out to be the holdouts, and not just the 20 and 30-year-olds. Friends and relatives of ours in their 50s, 60s and even 80s got crazy when Vanessa from Yondr informed them that this would be a phone-free fiesta. One 50ish guest snapped, "I'm not from LA" -- true -- "and I don't have a phone" -- total lie. Other people offered some variation on excuses like, "But I'm a [doctor/FBI agent/someone who would rather walk on cut glass than holster my Samsung]."

The teens opted in almost unanimously. Partly it's that they liked getting a cool new add-on for their devices even one that shut it down. But I think they also appreciated the challenge. Even those who've never known life without these gizmos know it's a relief to cut the cord once in a while. That's not to say there weren't a couple young protesters. One girl leered at Vanessa and said, "You can't take my phone from me," even after hearing that she could keep it. "This is my right. This is my personal property. I'm not going to...." At least we know who's heading to Stanford Law.

All in all, around 50 phones got the Yondr treatment, but the impact was wider than that. Setting the tone at the door signaled to people that we'd rather see their faces than their Facebook feeds, and across the board, guests complied. There were no selfies on the dance floor and even when Sebastian got hoisted up on a chair during the hora, people were participating not taking pictures.

Fortunately, we did have a photographer, who captured my mom among a bunch of tweens. No, the kids couldn't take video and watch it later on their phones, but they did get to watch Grandma Judy whip and watch her nae nae.

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