Brilliant. Too bad there's apparently no built in way to do it.

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?"

Having grown up with an unreliable sluggish gsm dial up connection when the web was already getting heavier payloads, and forced to have developed the virtue of patience and love of progress bars, I think this might work with latency intransigent people, but I know I will blank stare into the load spinner to get my doom ration.

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 think this is a great idea. Wouldn't have guessed this would be possible so I looked into how it'd actually be implemented.

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.

HN hug so I can't read it right now, but this approach doesn't really work for most people. The problem with these types of approaches is that anything done can be undone. And if you have the willpower to not undo it, then you have the willpower to not need to have done it in the first place. Now, buying a slow phone on purpose may work, but that's a different approach.

I love the concept - blocking apps are often too restrictive which makes me disable them. Slowing could be a nice alternative.

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!

I want that for my whole house

This guy is crippling a top notch device he paid good money for. This is crazy.

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.

Actually seems like a good idea. It's like when I use a 2012 laptop. I can't last more than 30 minutes on it. Probably a LAN proxy that throttles the network for some devices...

I love this.

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!

I have a few hacks that work for me, documented here: https://open.substack.com/pub/theperfectlycromulent/p/how-to...

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.