Did you open Instagram to check for unread DMs, slip into a reel for a minute, then to a sea of reels for another 30-35 minutes and then realize you were on Instagram for 30 minutes after the fact? We've all been there: we forget what we opened our phones for.

I was also the same for the last couple of months. I was previously a light smartphone user since most of my work happens in my PC. I used to consider myself above the doomscrollers. But that ended quickly once I realized I've been doomscrolling for a couple of weeks. Even after the realization, I wasn't able to properly quit doomscrolling for another couple of months.

After a lot of experimenting, I've finally found something that works for me. And I've implemented it in such a way that you can use it too. Interested? Please read on as I take you through my journey!

Engineered demons

First of all, understand that it's not really your fault, despite what a lot of keyboard warriors and influencers say. Thousands of smart people around the world are tasked with ensuring you forget what you opened an app or website for. This is profitable for the systems and products that make you do it.

For instance, one of Instagram's Key Performance Indicators (KPI) is how fast the user reached Reels after opening Instagram. There are teams dedicated to improving this metric, a.k.a, making people reach the Reels tab more quickly. You can bet money that they also have another metric how long people stay scrolling Reels. Improving these metrics directly boosts advertiser confidence in Meta ads, driving its revenue and growth. This in turn boosts Meta's stock prices.

In this game, Meta is just a player - you can't hate them alone. As the saying goes, don't hate the player, hate the game. Once it was proven that selling your attention and time to advertisers is profitable, the race was on to do it best and most because the ones who did it best and most would win in the long run. Today, the best players are TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. Each player tickles different parts of your fancy and captures that attention to sell to advertisers. Just like the cold war, no one can or will slow down - the race will only get faster and more intense.

Time as money

As human beings, we collectively agree that time is precious. With no anti-aging tech currently available (or on the horizon), all of us alive now have a finite time to walk this planet alive.

In this available time, a person would ideally like to do something that outlasts them. This can be anything from exciting stuff like building a new product to mundane stuff like raising a child who will outlive you. As such, the time we have is currency.

The sci-fi film In Time shows what happens when humans are able to control this currency. (Spoiler ahead if you plan to watch) In this dystopian world, everyone stops aging at 25 years old. After that, they have only one year left to live. A digital clock on their forearm counts down their remaining lifespan. People earn time by working, spend it on food, rent, transport, and can transfer it between people. If your clock reaches 00:00:00, you die instantly. It's one of those films in which you feel dread once you think about what would happen if our world became that way.

But, I'd argue that our world is already this way! The attention grabbing tech platforms and systems currently in place are doing the same thing in a different way. Instead of selling an hour of your life at the grocery store, you're selling that same one hour for consuming various kinds of content hosted and served by the platform. The platform in turn sells that one hour to different advertisers who will happily buy them up. Add up your hours of doomscrolling, and you'll surely be on track to spend years of your life on these platforms - years you could have spent on that desire to build something that outlasts you. The only difference is that unlike the film, no one can buy back their lost time.

By this logic, people who pay for screen time control methods and systems aren't dumb, far from it. Just like Michael Siebel says in this episode of Dalton + Michael, the most successful people heavily audit their phone and social media usage and are the ones paying for stuff like screen time apps. So yes, if you have to, then paying for a good screen time control solution is actually conducive to having a fulfilling life.

Controlling usage

Today, a smartphone is not just an entertainment device or a nice-to-have. In most third world and developing countries, people use their smartphones to get serious work done. There are tons of food & grocery delivery riders, solo content creators, cab drivers, etc who basically make a living because of their smartphone and these opportunities smartphones have opened up.

I know people who are paid to basically make and post short form videos on Instagram full-time. That's their job. It's inevitable that they fall into a doomscrolling loop at some point. So, telling someone to simply control their phone usage is naive.

Add to this the fact that there are smart people working round the clock to keep you on your phone, and it's basically impossible for the average person to get off of their phone without external help and/or motivation.

My old way

I myself come from a middle-class family in India. I don't know your background so I'll explain mine and tell you the story.

Earlier

Back when I was 10-12 years old, we had a PC that had a Pentium dual core CPU and 2 GB of RAM. It ran Windows XP. My brother and I would initially sink hours into it playing a game: Pinball. Then, a technician visited our house when the PC ran into some problems, fixed it and installed Windows 7, along with NFS Hot Pursuit 2. Our craze intensified. That's when mom stepped in and introduced a new rule in the house. The computer would be off-limits on weekdays. Us kids would get 2 hours each Sunday to play games. We could choose the starting time.

Each Sunday, we'd plan and ask mom. She'd grant the time and then call out when we had played for 2 hours. Thus, our weekly screen time was 2 hours. All we needed was a shouting reminding us it was time to stop. This is very similar to the screen time limits of today and used to work fine.

Later

This broke down around the 15-16 y/o mark when I started doing serious work with the PC, like coding or writing. Mom couldn't simply give me 2 hours per week because that would essentially interrupt or outright block my work.

Meanwhile, I'm guilty of wasting time reading niche forums or articles about useless stuff along the way. It would have been nice to have something pull me out of that rabbit hole in the situations I did it.

Keep this in mind as I explain my currently working solution.

What I tried

Before that, I'd like to list what all I tried and what shortcomings each one had to give you a better context.

iOS screen time management

You basically choose an app and set a daily time limit for it. Once you use the app for that much time, the system blocks the app for the rest of the day.

Pros

• Better than nothing

Cons

• You could slip into doomscrolling and finish your entire quota in one fell swoop.
• There is a constant urge to extend and/or disable the quota to use the app again.

Example: I'd open Instagram to check a DM, then slip into reels. I'd stay there until my quota ran out, realise I'd been doomscrolling and stop. Later in the day, I'd be bored and open it again. Then, I'd either disable or extend the quota and the cycle repeats.

Opal

You can set sessions or daily time limits for apps in Opal. Time limits are the same as iOS native screen time management. I tried sessions. When you open an app, you decide right then how long you wanna use it for and set a timer. Once the timer ends, app is blocked.

Pros

• You could reopen the app multiple times per day without extending the quota or time limit.
• No need to disable the system depending on the type of day

Cons

• You end up chaining multiple sessions together, effectively ruining the purpose.

Example: I'd open X for 1 min and would start scrolling. I'd see something provocative/funny and would be reading it when the session ends. I'd immediately tap a few buttons to start another session and finish reading. After I do so, I slip into the comments or feed again. There's no real break between sessions, you just chain multiple ones together and keep going.

OneSec

It adds a quick delay before you open an app.

Pros

• Reminds you to think why you're opening an app

Cons

• Once you open and slip into doomscrolling, it's ineffective

Example: I'd decide I want Instagram now to quickly check stories, but end up doomscrolling.

My solution

Imagine instead of mom granting daily time quotas, there is someone who asks you why you're opening an app and grants you just enough time to do it. That would be Hase.

Each time you open an app,

• Tell Hase why you're opening it and get a time window
• Do what you came to do, after which Hase blocks the app
• Once he does so, it enters a cooloff during which it can't be reopened.
• If you really want to finish something you were doing, convince him to grant a reopen.
• If he is convinced, you get to reopen immediately.
• Otherwise, wait for cooloff to end and repeat.

This way, you stay true to why you opened the app for but don't chain sessions together and end up doomscrolling anyway. He'll watch you like a parent.

I've been using Haserupt along with building it, and it has reduced my average weekly screen time by almost 3 hours.

Conclusion

Haserupt is for me, the perfect middle ground between being restrictive and ineffective. As per user feedback, it's been working out for a lot of others too. All of the core functionality is free for life. We make money only if you decide you want more quotas.

In short, this was a boring brain dump and if you read till here, I'm amazed how you did. More than that, this proves your brain isn't fried from doomscrolling; it can still focus on long enough to read through a boring blog post, not just short tweets on X or posts on Reddit!

I believe you're still very much capable of defeating brainrot, so keep at it! Thanks for reading and I sincerely wish you the very best in your journey to defeat doomscrolling and uncontrollable smartphone usage. My personal email is always open if you wanna chat!