I was inspired to post about Brick by the earlier post on getting over mobile phone addiction.
While I have never been a heavy user, my screen time last year peaked at over three hours a day and I wanted to make a change. At some point I succumbed to an Instagram ad for this product called Brick. It is a simple device that can be stuck to your fridge or another metal surface. You load a companion app on your phone, which lists all your installed apps. You can then determine which of these you want to continue to use after scanning the Brick device. The idea is that when you leave for work in the morning or need to study, you can lock yourself out of certain apps, like social media, until you return to the device and scan it again.
It also has more detailed functions, like locking apps after a certain amount of time.
For me, I can’t say it ever worked. I would either forget to scan it or else find ways around it. Whatever the case, the levels of self-control needed were seemingly the same. That experience made me wonder if tools like Brick can really solve the problem of distraction, or if they just relocate it. On paper, adding a physical step should increase the barrier to giving in, but in practice I found that it still came down to willpower.
While I ultimately disabled my Instagram, what has helped me keep my screen time under two hours a day is the simple trick of turning my phone to greyscale. When I first heard of that approach I was skeptical, but it has been surprisingly effective. Even though I’ve mostly moved on from social media (occasionally falling into TikTok’s grasp), I still set greyscale on especially busy workdays.
What strategies have you tried to rein in your mobile phone use? Which ones worked and, maybe more fun, which ones didn’t?
This post reminds me of something I’ve often wished existed. As someone who often would prefer to spend less time on my phone, I figured a timer system would be an effective tool. Most phones have screen-time settings, but it seems like they would be too easy to ignore. You get the little pop-up saying your time is up, and with one tap you can bypass it.
After a quick search, it appears that there are several apps out there already with this design. A couple of examples are the apps: Freedom and Forest. Freedom locks you out of apps for a set period, and Forest adds a gamified element where your tree grows as long as you resist picking up your phone. Both add friction, which forces you to pause before giving in.
Another one I stumbled upon is called ScreenZen, which I think takes the concept even further. Instead of just blocking apps, it builds in a pause. Each time you try to open a distracting app, you get a short delay and a prompt asking why you’re opening it. It makes you reflect for a second and decide if you really want to use what’s called your “time credit.” I’ve decided to give this one a try to see if it works!
This was actually a device that came up during one of my department meetings, and potentially using something like this for students upon entry to each classroom (obviously, there are issues and hindrances to being able to use something like this), but it spoke to the disruption of devices that are seemingly present in many of our lives. Whether personal or professional, many of us are aware that mobile devices and the apps that accompany them cause inevitable distractions. If we can barely rely on ourselves to reduce our own screentime, then how, in educational contexts, can we expect this of our students? This calls for a sense of empathy towards our learners and also a need to strategize ways that we can all benefit and reduce our screentime, whether through the use of devices like Brick, actual apps that can remind or assist us, or our own gentle internal reminders to make an active attempt to reduce time spent endlessly scrolling.
Thanks for sharing this!
I found this post really relatable because it highlights the gap between how distraction-control tools promise to work and how they actually play out in real life. I’ve also tried apps and blockers that were supposed to save me from myself, but like you, I often found ways to override them. It made me reflect on how much of digital wellness still comes back to self-awareness and habit formation, rather than just adding another layer of technology.
I really liked your note on switching to greyscale and I’ve tried it too, and it surprised me how effective such a subtle tweak can be. I think there’s something powerful in these “low-tech” strategies because they shift the emotional appeal of the screen itself rather than relying on external restrictions.
Your post also made me wonder about the psychology of friction. Adding a physical step (like scanning the Brick) sounds like it should help, but maybe it only works if the barrier is meaningful enough to disrupt impulse, not just a minor inconvenience. This connects with research I’ve read on habit loops, unless we address the underlying triggers (like boredom or stress), even clever tools won’t fully solve the issue.
Thanks for sparking reflection Kyle, and your experience shows how managing screen time is less about finding the “perfect” tool and more about experimenting with strategies until we find what genuinely fits our rhythms and motivations.