It’s not your fault that you’re addicted to your phone.The pesky social media apps we downloaded a few years ago to keep in touch with friends are specifically engineered to be a huge time suck, designed to keep us scrolling even when we know deep down they are making us miserable.Apple and Google have acknowledged this with their Screen Time and Digital Wellbeing tools that offer app time limits, but these are useless tools.Set a five minute daily timer for Instagram on an iPhone and when it pops up you have done your time, you can simply tap ‘Ignore’.
While some can resist the allure of app addiction, many of us simply don't have the willpower.Apple and Google don’t really want you to use your phone less because these tech giants make a shed load of money when you do.But what if there was a handy device that really did manage to put an effective wedge between you and the apps that waste your time?Some people have tried to beat app addiction by switching to an old flip phone or a modern dumbphone.Sure, this will get social media out of your pocket, but you’ll also lose WhatsApp, Google Maps, your banking app, your child’s school’s app, Uber, and other tools that are useful and sometimes even a necessity.That’s why I was intrigued to test out a small grey magnetic plastic gadget called Brick that claims it’ll block your distracting apps.
It’s the brainchild of two US college graduates who say they realised some apps are a distracting problem but didn’t think the solution was to ditch your smartphone entirely.Their solution is a little block with an NFC tag in it, the same tech used for contactless payments.You don’t need to charge it, ever.Using the Brick app, you select the apps that you want to block and then hit ‘Brick device’.You’re then prompted to tap your phone on the Brick block as though you were making a payment, and voila - your selected apps are ‘Bricked’ .
The only way to ‘Unbrick’ is to go into the app, tap ‘Unbrick device’, and then touch your phone to the Brick device.This is what pops up when I block Instagram and tap on the app, which is slightly greyed out when Bricked’:The Brick device costs £54 plus shipping to the UK, but there is no subscription.You can also share one Brick with your friends or family and all use it, each person simply needing to provide an email address when using the app.You don’t even need to make an account as the email is simply to receive a six digit code to log in.It turns out simply blocking an app using Brick is enough friction for my wife to not use Instagram, an app she readily admits she was addicted to.
At the time of writing, her Brick app shows she has had Instagram blocked for more than 647 hours, which is 28 days.She hasn’t been inclined to try and get around the block.If she had tried, it’s actually not too difficult.With the default settings, you can simply delete the Brick app, and the apps will become unblocked.
But the Brick’s makers know this, so you can toggle on Strict Mode before tapping to block apps, which stops you being able to delete the Brick app or any of the blocked apps.It's cleverly done.Without access to the Brick device, your chosen apps are truly blocked until you tap the Brick again.If you lose the Brick device, the app gives you five Emergency Unbricks to get around this so you aren’t locked out forever.
But you only get five of these, and once they're gone, they're gone.If you lose the Brick and you're in Strick Mode with no emergency codes left, you'll have to factory reset your iPhone.Gulp.I’m very impressed by Brick's simplicity, execution, and the lack of a subscription.We kept the magnetic Brick on our fridge.
Although I work from home, tapping it at the start of the day to block my digital vices, Instagram and news apps, was enough to keep me away.If you or your kids are out and about every day, this solution would work well - tap Brick before heading off to work or school, and you can’t go on the apps till you’re home.You can set different modes to block different selections of apps, a good option if you want to block work apps at the weekend.You can even schedule blocks.I’m very impressed by Brick's simplicity, execution, and the lack of a subscription.
£54 is a fair whack, but seems like a reasonable price for an app blocking device that actually blocks apps, unlike Apple’s flimsy Screen Time functionality.Brick cleverly uses Screen Time, which you need to give it access to when prompted, to work.Unfortunately this means Brick currently only works with iPhones, so Android owners are out of luck, but the firm says it’s working on bringing it to the platform.As I have written about before, I love the idea of using a simple dumbphone to cut out digital distraction, but the reality is jarring when you might need two factor authentication or apps for life and work.
The Brick is the best solution I’ve tried so far that gives you a bit of control back while also encouraging you to keep it up.In the best case scenario, you might even find it weans you off your app addictions completely.In my book, that’d be money well spent.You can buy a Brick from the manufacturer here.
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