When this 12 months began, I knew I needed to make drastic modifications … as a result of my cellphone had taken over my life.
Display time had skyrocketed. Humor circled round TikTok reactions. I discovered myself scrolling via waves of reports horrors and memes earlier than I used to be absolutely awake every day.
Enter the Brick, which has emerged because the go-to app for individuals trying to reset their relationships with their telephones.
“Bricking” your cellphone has now develop into a verb for individuals to share the information that they’re logging off and to inform others. I truly realized about “bricking” and “unbricking” myself via the loud declarations of different writers and influencers.
I used to be skeptical at first about whether or not an app blocker that prices over $50 could possibly be price it. However I had tried free methods of deleting social media apps and blocking them from my cellphone via options like Apple’s Display Time or Android Digital Wellbeing, they usually hadn’t labored as a result of they’re straightforward to bypass.
Nonetheless, the Brick is a bit sq. system that pairs with an app you obtain in your cellphone via a QR code. When you join your cellphone to your Brick, you may choose which apps you want to block and for which hours of the day. Then, the actual check begins. You faucet the bodily Brick system together with your cellphone to activate its app-blocking options — you want to contact the Brick once more if you wish to regain entry to your blocked apps.
I used to be struck by how onerous it was to depart the home for a complete day with a bricked cellphone. I even delayed utilizing it at first due to this nervousness, which solely strengthened my resolve that I in all probability wanted to undergo with this experiment.
So, after a day of an excessive amount of scrolling, I put myself to the check and put my Brick on my fridge. Now, I must rise up from the sofa or get again dwelling from work if I needed to entry that tantalizing Reddit publish.
I’m blissful to report that after greater than a month of use, my mind feels totally different. I anticipated the strict enforcement of a Brick to alter me — however even I used to be stunned by how a lot it did.
What You Ought to Know Earlier than You Attempt A Brick
The Brick, out there for iOS and Android, allows you to set modes for “deep work” and “household time” hours, so bricking robotically occurs through the pure rhythm of your day. It additionally retains a operating tally of what number of hours you may have been bricked every day, and on common, presumably to encourage you to remain robust and go a bit longer with out unbricking.
In case you overlook to make use of the Brick in your cellphone in your rush out the door, you can too Brick your system by urgent the Brick icon on the app’s homepage from the place you might be, however you’ll nonetheless want to return to the place your precise Brick is to unlock what you wish to unlock.
What I Cherished
The primary week I used it, I used to be stunned and embarrassed by how usually my fingers would robotically faucet the social media apps my Brick blocked me from accessing. My Brick bouncer would gently scold me every time I attempted to instinctively verify Instagram or TikTok.
The app offers you 5 “emergency” unbricking workarounds if you actually need to entry an app you may have blocked and also you’re not close to your Brick system, however I’ve but to make use of one. Needing to make use of “emergency” unbricking to make an Instagram story concerning the Galentine’s social gathering I attended actually put into perspective what precisely I used to be doing with my one treasured life.
The Brick challenged my perception that real-time social media suggestions was essential to remain related with my mates or to be good at my job. In my view, this pressured reflection is the Brick’s greatest profit. I’ve missed just a few direct messages from my mates, I’m not seeing as many humorous TikTok memes anymore, and I’m out of the loop on some social media developments, however I really feel extra answerable for what I’m consuming. On the very least, I’m paying extra consideration to how I spend my time on my cellphone.
What I Suppose Might Be Higher — And Why I’m Sticking With My Brick
The Brick prices round $59 dollars for one system. Although I discover this little plastic field to be prohibitively costly for what it’s, I like that a couple of particular person can use the identical Brick, so you would theoretically get your roommate or accomplice to separate the prices, too. I additionally like that when you purchase it, you don’t must pay a subscription payment to maintain utilizing it, in contrast to many different apps.
Nonetheless, bricking your self shouldn’t be going to remodel you utterly.
Catherine Pearlman, a licensed scientific social employee and writer of “First Cellphone: A Youngster’s Information to Digital Duty, Security, and Etiquette,” mentioned the Brick is “a beautiful system,” however can’t be a long-term resolution to countless social media scrolling by itself.
“When you’re dwelling [where your Brick is], the impulse nonetheless exists,” she informed me. “So it doesn’t truly educate you how one can work via that impulse to say…‘How do I actually wish to spend my time? How do I work via this emotion that I’m making an attempt to keep away from by scrolling?’”
Answering these questions is an even bigger journey solely you may reply. For Pearlman, it meant discovering different methods to make use of her screen-free time.
“I knew I wasn’t going to cease utilizing my cellphone, however I needed to have an alternate,” she mentioned for instance. “After which when the newspapers acquired too upsetting, I went to Kindle. So now I simply learn books in my Kindle, and I learn eight books in January.”
If you wish to get critical about blocking social media not simply in your cellphone however in your pc as properly (which your Brick can not entry), Pearlman instructed the free web site blocker Cold Turkey.
As for me, I’m persevering with to brick myself within the evenings, in order that I can study a brand new screen-free interest of crochet. Simply this previous week, my cellphone display screen time dropped 62% in comparison with the week earlier than. Making loops of crochet rows with my palms feels extra satisfying than the loops of TikToks I watched every evening, however I don’t suppose I’d have caught with my new interest with out the Brick’s admonishments.
I’ve gone from my excessive of 9 hours of each day display screen time to a extra affordable 5 or 6 hours throughout a workday. I nonetheless have lapses the place I’ll go an evening with out Bricking, however I really feel a lot calmer after I do. When my head shouldn’t be cluttered with the pulls of social media notifications and attractive Reels, I’ve time to determine what I actually wish to do. And that’s a present that I feel is price retaining.
