There is a great habit-breaking app called “One Sec.” You configure it with your addicting apps or websites and it uses iOS shortcuts to interrupt you when you open them, and make you wait for some time — optionally with the selfie camera open — and confirm you really want to open it. It’s extremely effective and I highly recommend it. I don’t have it anymore since it led me to eventually delete Instagram and I never looked back. Although I should reinstall it and apply it to YouTube shorts…

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

Personally, my recent and surprisingly greatest win was to set up my old phone (samsung S21) with the addictive apps, removing them completely from my iPhone.

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.

I log out of every social media website/app because the act of logging in is just enough friction for me to be mindful: do I really want to do this?

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 think more people should set up their iPhone using Apple Configurator, a Mac app used to control apples mdm solution. You do have to factory reset your phone for this once, but after that you have extremely granular control over what you can and can’t do. It’s much more powerful than the parental controls system and much harder to circumvent.

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.

As someone who used to have actually slow phones before: this will not help your doom-scrolling. You will still doom-scroll, but you'll just be frustrated and miserable due to the lags. You're welcome.

Imagining a version of this that scales by how long I've been using the phone since the screen's been off. If I need to check something quickly, I want the internet and processing to be fast, because checking my phone a lot is fine with me – just not zoning out for long periods of time. First 60s or so unpenalized. Then beyond that, if I'm getting close to my daily target, it starts throttling. A little longer than 60s? Maybe only a bit slowed down. 5min? I want it to get cronchy. Not sure network's the right axis though. Maybe actual screen responsiveness?

"It was a bit ironic to spend that much on a phone just to build the thing that would slow it down."

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.

I did something similar. I like to keep my phone limited (the only real useful/joyful things on it for me are family pictures, music and maps). So I used an iphone SE until it fell apart, now I use an iphone mini that doesn't have enough storage so it offloads all but the top ten apps I use.

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

The most effective rule for me is no addictive apps on my phone or laptop - browser apps only. The browser apps are _far_ less addictive and just enough friction to keep me off them for extended periods of time. As well, infinite scroll just isn't as effective in a browser and there's a real feeling of limited content running out.

This is a method, but it's the underlying issue that needs to be resolved.

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.