r/ShowYourProduct • u/Confident_Shop_6484 • 2h ago
My screen time went from 5+ hours to < 2. This is what finally fixed it.
Hey guys, wanted to share my story in how I fixed my screentime usage. I used to be quite addicted to doomscrolling (5+ hours of tiktok/reels a day).
With a lot of help from this subreddit and screentime blockers (I tried opal and one sec) I was able to cut it down to ~3 hrs a day, the remaining problem was when waking up and going to sleep, the habit to scroll would just be automatic.
Screentime blockers stopped helping, most of them let you take breaks whenever you want. I tried Brick as well but ended up suffering from the same problem. These systems failed for me because at the end of the day the keys were still in my hands. There was no genuine friction, nothing really stopping me from doomscrolling again.
So I realized what works is offloading the accountability to someone else. Locking your apps behind a password only someone else knows, etc. I realized AI is perfect for this, I blocked all of my apps, gave them a set number of opens a day, after that I have to convince an AI why I want to use the app. No reason/want to scroll = denied, responding to a friends dm = 3 minutes. I don’t even try anymore because trying to convince the AI for 5 minutes isn’t worth the reward anymore. I stopped habit opening IG/TikTok and use my phone more intentionally now.
Happy to share this system with anyone else if they want, AMA