I kept wasting time on social media, even though I’d promised myself I’d stay focused. Regular site blockers didn’t help.
I needed something that felt annoying enough to break the habit. That’s how the idea came up: make the blocker ask me to say something embarrassing out loud before it lets me back in. If I actually have to yell “I’m a loser” into my mic. Even better - the louder I screamed, the more time I’d get.
So I put together Scream to Unlock. It’s silly, but so far it’s done its job. My social feeds stay locked unless I really want them.
Extension link - https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/scream-to-unlock-ye...
Its open source and transparent - https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/scream-to-unlock. No data collection or tracking, Audio processing happens locally in your browser. No recordings saved or transmitted.
Research:
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3354773/ – Low self-esteem + rejection hurts self-control
- https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2007_Power... – Self-criticism predicts less goal progress
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9916102/ – Social exclusion slows inhibitory control
- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1191... – Low teen self-esteem → poorer self-control
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8768475/ – Meta-analysis links shame to regulation drops
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28810473/ – Self-compassion boosts self-regulation
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312138882_Self-Cont... – Ego threats deplete self-control resources
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21632968/ – Self-criticism tied to worse goal progress
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-96476-8 – Low self-respect → low self-control → problems
Remember to be kind to yourself.
The research stands, but the practical application of his app is based on a Positive Punishment operant conditioning.
That is not a psychologically healthy way to frame this.
And I think it’s a stretch to say that screaming “I’m a loser” is positive punishment, which seems just as likely to reinforce negative self beliefs that lead to the outcomes described in the parent comment’s research and opposite of what the user presumably wants.
To your point, just flipping this around to “I’m a winner” doesn’t seem quite right either. But more importantly, reinforcing the idea that “I’m a loser” seems counterproductive either way.
Why are you drinking? — the little prince asked.
- In order to forget — replied the drunkard.
- To forget what? — inquired the little prince, who was already feeling sorry for him.
- To forget that I am ashamed — the drunkard confessed, hanging his head.
- Ashamed of what? — asked the little prince who wanted to help him.
- Ashamed of drinking! — concluded the drunkard, withdrawing into total silence.
---
What helps is self-forgiveness and being gentle towards oneself. (I also was in the mode of guilt-tripping myself; and still, I do that often. But it does not help.)
- Bruce Lee
There needs to be a healthier alternative to that replaces the social media habit, that is reinforced by enjoying it. I do this by reading books I wouldn’t normally read, which also gives me a reason to browse indie bookshops.
Yelling "I'm a loser" too much reminds me of that, though on a different level of the "brain stack". I get the sentiment, and I understand the somewhat playful intent, but quite seriously I'd suggest something more neutral at the very least. Maybe it's completely harmless, but that's clearly the best case scenario, and it goes down hill fast after that. "First, do no harm" strikes me as relevant here, and important as ever.
"social media is for losers, and I'm a winner!"
might be both comedic and positive?
Maybe that's a little too close to the WINNERS DON'T USE DRUGS! splash screens that dominated the video games of my youth. We all snickered at those and I don't think it made a bit of difference. Dunno. Heck of a thing to holler when you're on the bus or whatever before you can get your fix, that's for sure.
But screaming "I'm a winner" doesn't do it either, and is perhaps even more undermining
Everyone knows if you yourself have to say "I'm randomPositiveAttribute", whether it is "winner", "genius", "brilliant", "good-looking", etc., you are NOT that — you are just a loser trying to tell everyone you are somehow a winner.
Perhaps the best thing to yell is the most straightforward — "Unlock Social Media Now!". It doesn't overtly characterize you, it honestly exposes your weakness, which is probably a more powerful shaming de-motivator.
Be kind to yourself, but think through the problem before sending a week worth of research articles.
Then you could make it so the pain was in leaving to go back to other work, so you'd enter knowing it would not be an easy exit. (But you'd get to yell self-affirming things on exit :) )
My daughter is a second grader. If every 5 minutes of tablet use 'cost' her 5 correct arithmetic answers she would be working at space x right now.
Its much better to make kids interested in learning than to reward reaching goals or punish failing to reach them.
Long term, it could still be a win.
Obviously not the same, but in the first years of university, I hated math because it suddenly got hard (never before university did I have to learn math or physics just to barely pass). Then, after many nights of reading through books and practicing, grinding, I realized it's not that hard and it made me enjoy solving the "challenges".
What about chores? How should I make my children interested in chores outside of a reward or punishment?
While this isn't a "do math to be able to unlock your device" type of game, it is fun to play and can be used as an earned screen-time requirement (or a "free screen-time" option!)
Disclaimer: I work for Prodigy as a Site Reliability Engineer, but my son (10) also enjoys playing the game!
But TBH making kids continually solve math problems seems a bit mean to me. Like making a kid do pushups for food if they're overweight. Too militaristic and authoritarian for my liking, but I can respect your creativity for creating that. It's good to try new ideas.
There are ways of locking down phones and apps, I think. I am pretty sure there are apps that will do most of what you want, but they do not have critical mass.
I did set up a Jitsi server for my daughter and her friends at one point when another parent was not keen on allowing kids access to chat and video apps.
You can give kids a basic phone instead of a smartphone.
For use on a tablet, you'd have to lock down the tablet to that single app by putting it into Kiosk mode/Single App mode.
So I think it should force you to stare into the camera for 180 seconds without context switching to unlock. Practice focus to unlock distraction.
I like the idea, though, maybe five minutes for every 30 seconds of non-distracted gaze? Or something like that and tunable. Maybe even dynamic to the amount of time spent scrolling the feed in the last x hours?
Sounds like you would benefit from training 3 minutes at a time for starters!
I guess web browsers don't have integrated face recognition APIs yet, although phones could probably do this
I suppose it needs clarifying that I say this all in jest, not as any kind of serious suggestion. Among other reasons, it would only improve the tone and not the substance.
Wouldn't that simply be a picture of himself?
Not sure it works as well on people already addicted compared to people not yet addicted.
Are you sure Chrome doesn't talk to Google's server to convert the speech to text?
> Note: On some browsers, like Chrome, using Speech Recognition on a web page involves a server-based recognition engine. Your audio is sent to a web service for recognition processing, so it won't work offline.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Speech_...
I'm not attacking this project and OP per se but if we do believe that social media addiction is a real problem we're approaching it in very immature ways. It's either an easy problem than can be solved with temperance or its a hard problem that needs to be solved with real science based tools. Anything in-between seems like it could be more harmful than helpful.
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/run-for-fun-screen-time-focus/...
What eventually helped me was use css to replace entire YouTube (and other doom scrolling websites) with a motivational picture that says:
"One day, you'll realize that your dream died because you chose comfort over effort. Don't let that regret haunt you forever."
And it worked.
Edit: the css for yt looks like this:
body {
min-height: 100vh;
background-image:url(https://example.com/effort.jpg);
background-size: contain;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: center;
background-color: black;
}
p,div,h1,span {display:none}Otherwise Hacker News or freelance/indiehacker sites
edit: I do have a hobby (making hardware stuff) but I fell out of it/trying to get back into it (motivation) and work multiple jobs, but on downtime trying to do mindless stuff which isn't always bad/need a mental break
Now make a "Dungeon Crawler Carl" -branded one that requires a webcam, bare feet, and nail polish!
Maybe something like “I know this is the opposite of socializing but I want to give in the the mindless algorithmic manipulation for a little longer anyways”
On TikTok you can just swipe through ads when they come up, so lots of people now have built-in muscle memory to auto-swipe every 4th or 5th video, or if they see "Sponsored" in the lower left. If I was instead forced to watch every one of those through to completion, I'd spend a lot less time on there.