App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/one-sec-screen-time-focus/id15...

Quite literally "cold-turkey'ed" from 4.5-ish hours/day to 2 hours a day in a single day, consistent over the last few weeks.

I set up my second phone with a custom homescreen, and installing the 'bad' apps on there (Instagram, Youtube, NYTimes in particular). I dont use it for other apps.

Now if I want to scroll, which I still do sometimes, I have to walk to a specific chair next to which my 'addiction phone' is, I'll scroll for 10-15 minutes, and get back to the real world. I used to have particular issues with scrolling during vibe-coding sessions, and I'm genuinely surprised how well this approach worked for me.

The sense of slowness creates the conditions for pausing and being mindful of what you're doing.

In spirit, this reminds me of the return to slow/analog: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48084980

Consider it the no- or low-alcohol alternative to full speed. https://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

I use it to straight up disallow a bunch of apps and websites (tiktok, Reddit, YouTube, etc.)

For a while I even uninstalled safari which you can just do with this. Not having a browser at all on your phone is a neat experiment and really changed how I interact with tech on the go.

I did eventually install safari back, but overall I prefer the Apple Configurator setup a lot over any of these kinds of apps.

People doomscroll primarily to avoid certain thoughts/feelings/situations.

The way out of it is to:

1. Note that you're avoiding something.

2. Identify what it is.

3. Face it.

This is an addiction and reaching for the phone is just what gives relief to whatever pain one might be experiencing. Just removing that is laying ground for a substitute.

I was reminded of when Apple started slowing down the CPUs on older phones. Would be nice if you could just configure that on first run. "How addictive would you like your phone to be, sir?"

I see this with my own parents during overseas troubleshooting calls. It is an unpleasant, overwhelming experience for both sides. I used to get frustrated whenever my dad asked whether he should press "Next" on a screen, even though it was the only button available in the setup flow. For him, that pause wasn't a lack of technology background. It was complete paralysis. He was nervous that one wrong click would break everything. Different mental models don't help, and our industry keeps making it worse.

The rate of technology is just too fast. AI is making things even faster and not necessarily easier, there will just be more apps to try, more buttons to click, and more content to swipe. More is not always good for my parents' age.

But I wouldn’t make the phone slow for them either. The one good thing about technology now is that systems can finally understand context better than 10 years ago when I was debating teams on interfaces for video calls. We have better tools now to meet users where they actually are.

The meaning of design is different than the meaning of technology. It is less about how we can show users this, and more about why we need to show users this. I am taking a technology break myself right now (getting away from reels and tweets) and just reading Hacker News. This is where my head is at. I want to stop designing for the endless cycle of engagement, and start designing for: “presence”.

After years of fiddling with OneSec and others this really has been the only solution that has worked for kicking my screen addition.

Best thing - with AI I can quickly build APKs for whatever I actually need! I build an app to give me turn by turn directions and (ironically) an app to talk to Claude w/ web search. I feel like I'm living in a world of truly personalized software.

I find the interface itself (number pad with t9, tiny screen) to be the most important part of dissuading compulsive use. Would highly recommend!

maybe instead of slowing down your phone for no reason you could run a bunch of "useful programs" on it that slow down your phone (idk what these would be... compilation? rendering? Maybe a comment response to this has an idea)

I also think instead of slowing down the phone, maybe developing some habit of not using the phone might be more effective than trying to slow down the phone (like exercising outside without it if you can for example)

I didn't make it slow and buggy on purpose though. Apple did that for me with Liquid glass. Which I guess works!

The solution is Mobile device management (MDM) using Apple Configurator. All you need is a Mac and your iPhone and you can make it impossible to install distracting apps, create un-bypassable limits, and disable Safari. It's all very customizable and is the only solution that worked for me.

One sec is the second best to this in my opinion, but would be greatly improved if you could make it un-bypassable.

Something really rubs me the wrong way about apps that are supposed to make you healthier like One sec or meditation apps that are filled with trackers or ads.

That's another win for one sec as they only collect a bit of telemetry, no insane tracking.

There's also a way to do this on Android if someone is curious I can link my explanation of it.

I can still view the occasional instagram post or tiktok vid I get sent via instant msg but since it has to be opened on desktop mode in a browser I don't risk spending more than a few seconds on it.

Hard blocks (gotta re enable noprocrast here asap) and behavioral nudges like keeping an ebook with page open positioned inconveniently close and my phone out of reach work better for me.

I guess this is done on the device as a VPN via Apple's NetworkExtension config. But instead of a normal VPN where traffic goes through a server, the app just locally applies rules based on the app the packet came from and then routes them normally to their destination.

Personally I just deleted the accounts and apps but that doesn't work for everyone.

Also my phone is a 7 year old Oppo something that had a low end Mediatek CPU that sucked from day one. I fear how it would handle any doomscrolling app, it would probably physically eject the media decoder out of the phone after a minute.

That doesn't seem ironic to me, it seems economically foolish. Why not simply buy an older phone?

Okay, reading further down. Really this is just an advertisement for an app they made targeted to people without self control who watch videos on their phone too often.

This probably uses a vpn? It’s important to think about how to stop me disabling it casually. I use Opal which blocks my settings page too. Which works great but frustratingly it blocks my legitimate needs very often too!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zenbytelab...

* periodic feed tidying to unfollow as much content as possible. It will be obvious which content is low quality. Right click and “not interested” on apps that support that.

* fill the time with edifying activities: creative pursuits, social activities, helping out, gaming , fitness, bible study .

* turn the phone off (up , down + power button – it’s deliberately onerous) . Stash it in the glovebox or backpack. Even half an hour is a relief. moving my car key to the watch allowed me to leave the phone behind when doing fitness. Try to identify the specific “hook” to your phone.

* turn off push notifs & background app refresh. try moving your important contacts over to a single messaging app if you can so you can minimize the ones with notifications . Otherwise use pull over push if possible (i get that work often isn’t practical) . iOS focus modes let you automate this.

* replace doomscrolling with AI dialogs on any topic. You can go much deeper this way by asking “why” questions like a toddler. Let’s say you’re watching motorcycle crash videos, do a dialog on the history of motorcycle racing. Or any topic

Best way to prevent doomscrolling.

Here’s something else you can try: take off your phone case. My phone screen is scratched to hell and I think it runs slower from dropping it without a case so many times.

Someone should run a randomized trial with screen time against phone case usage. I wonder what would show up. Imagine the human connection and true critical thinking that would happen with just a 1% decrease in screen time!

This isn't a personal problem. It is a social one, and there lies the solution. These apps are engineered for addiction, to Dubai our attention and lives. The companies behind them should br punished and their employees ashamed.

Society must curb socially and environmental nocive organizations.

Cold turkey is for desktop not phones, not sure why that's relevant.

>[Reddit page.]

>Luke (thinking): I shouldn't be looking at Reddit. Why can't I stop?

>After years of trying various methods, I broke this habit by pitting my impatience against my laziness. I decoupled the action and the neurological reward by setting up a simple 30-second delay I had to wait through, in which I couldn't do anything else, before any new page or chat client would load (and only allowed one to run at once). The urge to check all those sites magically vanished--and my 'productive' computer use was unaffected.

https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/18/distraction-affliction-corr...

tl;dr Don’t keep your charger handy. Don’t have a good charger. Lose your phone (at home). Don’t have a phone case. Have a phone case.

When they do not, and I just get 10 random tiktok style slop videos from accounts I do not follow, I close the app and try again in a few months.

I am so glad they put in this feature that stops me scrolling further.

I vaguely remember funneling a shitload of salt and lime juice into a bottle of whiskey to encourage a visceral repulsive reaction and help break the habit.

I vaguely remember drinking some whiskey that definitely had something wrong with it that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

If you really have a problem, novel solutions like throttling aren't gonna cut it.

it would be a good conspiracy if all these apps were made by facebook/twitter/etc because they know that's the case.