If you want to reduce screen time, just get a brick

I’ve had screen time limits on my iPhone for years, allowing me 30 minutes on social media each day. How many times have you dismissed the limit notification and continued watching mindless reels? I’d be terrified to find out.

It turns out that what I needed all along was a hunk of gray plastic worth $59 (self-discipline would have been less expensive, but it was in short supply). the Brick – A magnetic widget about the size of a matchbox – that has done what no screen time app has ever done. It’s actually made me use my phone less and improve my sleep habits.

The brick stands apart from your standard Screen time app Because it takes things a step further into the physical world. The gadget is a branded, NFC-enabled box that only allows you to deactivate your custom screen time limits if you tap your phone on the Brick, just as if you were buying something from a tap-to-pay kiosk. Apparently, if I had to physically get up and tap my phone on a brick to go to Instagram, I wouldn’t go to Instagram.

“Brick was born out of a personal need: our phones were getting in the way of our lifestyle,” Zach Nasgowitz, co-founder, told TechCrunch via email. “We looked for solutions to this problem in our lives, but we found that nothing was quite right, so we decided to build something for ourselves that would solve this problem.”

I’ve used Brick to help me regulate my sleep, and I’m embarrassed to admit that it works better than I had hoped.

Like many other millennials — especially those of us whose jobs are heavily tied to the Internet — I have a bad habit of going to bed at night and mindlessly scrolling on my phone, which makes it even more difficult to fall asleep. Worse still, sometimes when I wake up, I end up staying in bed on my phone, and start the day feeling groggy.

I’ve created a “sleep” mode in the Brick app, which turns on every night at 10:30 p.m. My phone then automatically blocks all apps except messaging apps (I want to be available, just in case) and audio apps (I sometimes listen to podcasts or audiobooks to help me sleep). When I wake up, I can’t waste time on my phone unless I get out of bed, go downstairs, and attach my phone to the brick. (If you want to leave your phone out of your bedroom completely, but use podcasts as a sleep aid, I suggest you dreamer alarm clock.)

It’s embarrassing that I needed a $59 piece of plastic to make a lifestyle change, but without the brick, it would be much easier for me to fall back into old habits. I tested a brick the company sent me to review, and it was so effective that I’m going to buy one so I can continue using it (we return or give away our review units for ethical reasons). If you really want to, you can even try it DIY something like bricks Using NFC tag and Apple shortcuts.

“It’s easy to move beyond software-only solutions like Screen Time and Digital Wellbeing, and what actually works is adding friction,” TJ Driver, co-founder of Brick, told TechCrunch via email. “This allowed physical technology to step in to create a true disconnect that the software router couldn’t replicate. By requiring you to physically return to the device to unblock your apps, the decision to reconnect becomes an intentional one rather than an unconscious reaction.”

Users are provided with a small number of “emergency bricks,” just in case you’re out and about when your phone stops working and you really need a specific app, like Google Maps or Uber, to get home safely. But I find it easier to integrate these apps into my sleep mode on the rare occasions I’m late for work, so I don’t need to waste time in an emergency. Knowing I can open the Uber app doesn’t affect my sleep. I don’t swipe on Uber.

“Instead of constantly relying on willpower, it may be more effective to design your environment so that you don’t always have to tax your willpower or your mind,” Driver said. “Things like Brick help people choose how they want their phone to best serve them in a given moment or task, and then design their digital environment so they don’t have to think about it anymore.”

This focus on customization and agency is what has made the product work for many customers.

“One user had wanted a dumb phone for years, but couldn’t give up his primary texting app, KakaoTalk, to communicate with his wife and friends based in Korea,” Nasgewicz said. He said: “Brick turned my phone into what I always wanted – a phone that could text, call, take some photos, and use Kakao. “It’s perfect.”

People are becoming more interested in switching to “dumb phones” as their numbers increase Disappointed by big tech companies. But foldable phones aren’t designed for our current lifestyles, where we scan our phones instead of printing concert tickets, use our phones to pay subway fares, and have jobs that require us to use specific two-factor authentication apps. (Some companies such as Stupid company and Commodorethey are trying to address this problem by hacking foldable phones to load apps like authenticators and WhatsApp, or by creating entirely new devices.)

If you’re nervous about making a more extreme change like getting a flip phone, bricking is a happy medium — it works, but it’s not a radical intervention. You can make your phone as stupid as you want, whenever you want.

“When you zoom out and think about the screen time movement as a whole, it’s not about rejecting technology,” Driver said. “It’s about taking back agency and being intentional again.”