A retractable holder for a smartphone is formed with a housing, a connection mechanism for connecting and disconnecting the smartphone to the housing, a first lanyard loop comprising lanyard cords that are reeled onto or deployed from cord storage spools located inside the housing, a second lanyard loop comprising lanyard cords that are reeled onto or deployed from cord storage spools located inside the housing and a lanyard control mechanism. The lanyard control mechanism applies a retracting force to each of the cord storage spools, the retracting force operational to reel the lanyard cord extending from the housing in a deployed state to the cord's respective cord storage spool and to enable a user draw out and deploy a fixed length of the lanyard cord from the cord's respective cord storage spool.