Phone Story

Sure, you have a smartphone, but did you know that your fun times are only one small segment of its life cycle? This app presents four mini-games each representing different aspects of its creation, sale, and disposal. The first mini-game takes place in the Congo, where the mineral Coltan (columbite–tantalite) is mined by child slave labourers under watch by armed guards. Next, it's off to the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, where the player, using a suicide net, tries to catch despondent workers attempting to commit suicide after working 36-hour shifts by flinging themselves off of the building's roof. Then it's off to the Pear Store, for a brief visit to the first world and its problems — where a store manager attempts to meet the frenzied demand for the store's smartphones by rabid customers storming its front entrance. Finally, the game whisks players away to Pakistan, where a grubby family dismantles obsolescent tech gadgets rolling by on a conveyor belt, extracting the e-waste's precious mineral value in an environment of harsh chemicals and acrid, carcinogenic smoke without the aid of protective gear.