WE CAN ALL agree that it’s quite annoying when you go out to eat with a friend and they won’t stop texting–but few of us could remove outside communication from the equation completely.
Social entrepreneur Ciaran Maguire and his business partner Francois Gascuel want to set up a cafe in Dublin which aims to do just that. By blocking all wifi and phone signal, customers will be forced to… talk to each other.
Maguire told DailyEdge.ie that he got the idea from college course which set them a task of “improving people’s mental health by ‘switching off’ and connecting with people again”.
The former Applied Physics student said that the idea came from the faradays cage concept, which had been “drilled to his head” throughout that time. Faraday’s cage, of course, being an enclosure that prevents electric fields from entering or leaving.
A pop up café with the same name previously opened in Vancouver, but Maguire says they’re not affiliated in any way. While they have a place in mind, they’re having a few planning problems as the cafe would involve a large wire mesh cage, and shockingly…
Turns out no one in health and safety likes putting people in a cage!
They’re still toying with implementing the idea as a popup or a permanent feature, but assures us it’s on the way.
