nov / 2025
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As each facet of our working and social life is digitized, display screen dependancy has change into much less an exception to our way of life and extra a broadly accepted attribute of it. I see this mostly once I ask my associates, household, and coworkers what number of hours a day they spend on their telephones. The solutions range from three to eight hours.
I common round 4 hours of my day on my telephone, checking emails, responding to texts, scrolling social media, and checking the climate. That is 4 hours I may very well be spending studying a ebook, writing an article, studying how you can predict the climate, calling a liked one, and doing something moreover checking the time suck and mind rot that’s social media websites and messaging apps.
Each October, as common daylight dwindles and my vitality ranges deplete, this sense of discovered helplessness by the hands of know-how involves a head. I’ve no vitality to stand up from my mattress. It takes me some time to construct the braveness to transit to the gymnasium. What do I do as an alternative? I sit on my mattress and I scroll.
I scroll by monetary recommendation posts telling me that I must be investing far more available in the market than I already am, I scroll by engagements and weddings my former classmates are celebrating, I scroll by reactionary content material strangers publish on the web for clicks, and I scroll by a few of the most sinister information my eyes can see and my mind can fathom. All this content material is mixed in, and I let it wash over me like I am mendacity on the sands of a pathetic ocean.
As soon as I attain this level, I delete my social media apps. I attempt to put my telephone in one other room whereas I work, eat, and do chores round the home. I create a stricter schedule and power myself to go away the home extra. Then, every week or two later, as soon as I’ve returned to my pure, steady, ripen, not rotten, mind, I redownload all these apps. Maybe it is just some weeks or months, however the cycle continues.
I’ve tried the deadlines, the app blockers, and utilizing social media on a browser as an alternative of the app itself. So this October, I attempted one thing new. I had seen protection of the corporate Brick and its miracle-working machine that successfully locks customers out of their high-demand apps. Individuals had claimed the minimalistic, magnetic dice gave them their time again. I will be the choose of that, I believed to myself.
The oldsters at Brick despatched me a tool, which I instantly started testing upon reception and have been for the previous few weeks. TL:DR? This machine has accomplished numbers on my relationship with my most addictive apps. This is how.
The way it works
Brick is a grey, magnetic sq. with a suitable app. Upon downloading the app, an individual selects the apps they need to disable as soon as their telephone is bricked. Brick makes use of NFC know-how, which can also be present in contactless funds, digital wallets like Apple Pay, and safe entry controls, reminiscent of digital keycards used to realize entry into buildings, to allow and disable app use. Tapping the brick, or “bricking,” blocks the usage of these apps till the telephone is tapped as soon as once more and “unbricked.”
You possibly can arrange schedules to dam apps throughout particular occasions of the day and modes to dam sure sorts of apps. I started testing the product by making a mode that blocks my most-used apps, specifically Messages, Instagram, Fb, Threads, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Brick offers you 5 free “unbricks” you need to use in an emergency, if you aren’t close to the bodily Brick.
My expertise ‘Bricking’ my iPhone
I have never arrange a schedule but, as a result of I am happy bricking my machine upon my very own volition and unbricking once I must test messages or posts from associates. Bricking the machine once I acknowledge my very own want for distance from my telephone felt like a simple first step at curbing my telephone dependancy. A schedule felt too stringent. I can see the scheduling function turning into handier as soon as I’ve spent a number of weeks bricking my telephone and developed much less of a reliance on usually checking it, of which I am nonetheless engaged on.
My telephone utilization is the worst (and makes me really feel the worst) whereas I am at house. Scrolling by social media between subway stops or checking messages sometimes on the workplace is not my problem. It is the hours I spend losing as soon as I get house from a busy day of labor, or the time I spend losing away on the weekends that I may very well be dedicating to hobbies.
In order that’s the place I primarily use the Brick. My roommates, nonetheless, have used the Brick earlier than studying on the park, they usually reported that it helped them focus longer. One Monday evening, I bricked my telephone after which journal for 90 minutes, fully and completely undisturbed.
I like bricking my telephone earlier than bedtime, which, within the phrases of my roommate, looks like “shutting the house laptop down on the finish of the evening.” Every now and then, I will be mendacity in mattress and remembering I need to test an app or ship a textual content.
Doing so would power me out of my mattress, down an extended hallway, and into the kitchen to unbrick my telephone. It made me rethink my telephone utilization selections.
Within the morning, after waking, I am going to go to my kitchen, the place my Brick is caught on the fridge, and unbrick my telephone. This offers me round an hour earlier than work, throughout which I can compensate for messages and the every day happenings.
Then, as soon as I start work, I brick my telephone once more. After not less than an hour of zero distractions, I am going to reward myself with a fast unbrick. I test my messages or scroll for a couple of minutes and rebrick. It is just like the Pomodoro impact, however for telephone dependancy.
Working with out the fixed pings or easy accessibility to social media jogs my memory of the productiveness I might have whereas doing my homework on an airplane earlier than Wi-Fi turned obtainable — that undeterred, distraction-free type of productiveness and clearheadedness that comes with disconnection from the surface world.
Why it really works for me
Brick makes entry to my most-used apps a privilege I really feel like I need to earn by endurance, quite than one thing I can take as a right each time I would like. It additionally jogs my memory that the variety of occasions I test my telephone to see if somebody has reached out is disproportionate to the variety of notifications I obtain per hour. Briefly, there isn’t any want for me to be checking it as typically as I’m.
Not like a display screen time notification or restrict, which is enabled as soon as somebody reaches their every day app restrict, Brick positively reinforces my time spent with out my apps. A widget pops up when you brick your machine, displaying a timer exhibiting how lengthy you’ve got been offline since bricking.
It straight contrasts the unfavorable reinforcement that’s the “You’ve got reached your every day Instagram restrict” notifications I obtain by Display Time. Within the app, it’s also possible to see how a lot time you’ve got spent bricking every day. All these options and touches assist me construct the case for myself that I can really go with out these apps for extended intervals.
What I would prefer to see improved
You needn’t brick your machine to provoke a schedule, say at 9 a.m., as soon as you’ve got began work. However you have to your Brick readily available at 5 p.m., if you need to unbrick your machine. That is irritating in case you’re not in the identical location as your Brick as soon as the clock strikes 5 p.m., however there is a workaround, which a good friend let me in on.
If you wish to unbrick your telephone after the allotted brick time is over in your schedule, my good friend really helpful creating one other schedule instantly after your first schedule ends, after which unbricking a random app. This permits the scheduling function and unbricks the specified apps with out requiring the bodily machine.
My good friend additionally talked about how Brick did not register his change in time zones when he was touring, one thing he’d like Brick to enhance.
ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation
I extremely suggest Brick in case you battle with usually checking your telephone or losing time on social media. Through the first full week I used it, my display screen time decreased by 7%. Its optimistic reinforcements, quite than admonishments if you’ve gone over your allotted display screen time, incrementally construct the case which you could, certainly, go with out these apps.
I would suggest this most to individuals searching for a productiveness increase — whether or not that is one you are in search of out on or off the job. After bricking my telephone one evening, I made a decision to go on a not-so-addictive however still-distracting app earlier than mattress. I watched one YouTube video for round two minutes, till I spotted I may very well be studying my ebook as an alternative. I am unsure if I might have made that selection with out Brick.
I do know, $59 is a excessive value to pay for self-control. Nonetheless, from my expertise with the machine, it’s value it for the standard of life improve and the long-desired autonomy from my gadgets that I’ve regained. Plus, in case you purchase it throughout Brick’s vacation sale, you may get a $12 low cost that cuts the value by 20%. This may make a incredible present for anyone, whether or not they’re a social media obsessed teen or unfocused father seeking to lay off their telephone.
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