Gain back control over your smartphone and app usage. one sec empowers you to spend more time in the real world by decoupling your brain from the perfidious psychologic traps social media companies add to their apps to make you addicted.
With one sec, you‘ll notice both a short-term and long-term effect on your social media usage:
Unconscious phone habits are prevented right away (“Why did I even want to open that app?”) and long-term habits change because these apps appear less appealing to your brain (their “dopamine on demand” effect fades away).
If configured, one sec can force you to set an intention for opening apps. This way you have to think about your action and what you actually want to do in the app.
You planned to check on a message – and ended up scrolling for 30 minutes on Twitter? With one sec that‘s no more!
one sec will send you a notification after one to five minutes to check if you‘re still following your intention. This helps you to reflect if you still need to have that particular app opened.
Notifications are automatically discarded if you‘ve already closed that app.
“Setting this up took a minute as it’s involved within the system settings and it’s really a very intuitive way to use the features on iOS imho….I’ve only been using it for a little over a day and I’m so annoyed with opening the apps (I put in every block possible including forcing a note on why) I’ve went from 4 hours of mindless scrolling yesterday to only 36 minutes today. it’s made opening Instagram and Facebook the most annoying part of my day. Nothing else has worked to help curb my usage of these mind numbing apps until I found this.”
– by New concept gaming – Oct 21, 2021, Apple AppStore
Being forced to take a deep breath helps yourself to reflect on what you are currently doing on your phone – did you really want to open Instagram or was it muscle memory?
A clever trick: by making you wait longer for social media to open, your brain loses interest in those (destructive) short-term dopamine hits.
Modern social media is designed to make you increase your screen-time – ultimately, to display more ads to you. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok utilize the latest psychology research to make you addicted – and now with one sec you can fight back.
Over time, you will notice that you lose the urge to open specific apps, and that you develop towards using social media only for specific purposes. Not only because you‘re bored.
one sec will check on you after you‘ve opened a particular app: are you still following your initial intention? This helps to reflect again, and close the app if don‘t need it anymore.
The setup is easy: configure the one sec Shortcut to be triggered when opening an app – within the Shortcuts app. Video instructions are available within my app.
“It’s exactly what I needed. A forced break from repetitive, mindless social media. Absolute pure genius. It takes a few minutes to set up but it is completely worth it.”
by Ozexpat – Jul 3, 2021, Apple AppStore
Just like me, your brain is probably heavily intertwined with the small dopamine hits you can get from social media. This is actually proven to be unhealthy and can lead to phone-addictions. one sec helps to fix those broken reward pathways in our brains.
Social media provides immediate rewards — in the form of attention from your network — for minimal effort through a quick tap on your screen. And one sec increases the effort to those rewards…so they don‘t seem that appealing to your brain anymore.
“I’ve never written a review for an app in my life- but I feel so passionately we need to do everything in our power to stop Facebook from commodifying our attention with its addictive, for-profit design. This app is an empowering breakthrough. We can discipline our minds or let them do it for us.. I’ve been looking for a way to do the former and this is it! I’m full of gratitude.”
by alternatefan29 – Oct 6, 2021, Apple AppStore
“Every time you‘re waiting for something, you have a decision to make which seems like a tiny one: Pull our your phone for a few seconds or minutes – or just be bored and experience only your thoughts. It seems like an insignificant decision. And if you don‘t give it much thought the obvious action is to see what‘s new on your app of choice. And in making that decision you are alleviating a moment of boredom.
But you are also likely making yourself less creative, less altruistic, less likely to assess your current state and less likely to set goals for your future.
In short, you are the real world example of someone shocking themselves to avoid the unpleasantness of boredom. Except in your case, the pain goes much deeper to the very nature of who you are, and who you will become.
So think carefully before pressing that button.”
– Veritasium
After some time, check back in one sec to see how your phone habits have changed. The amount of times you‘ve opened a particular app, or the amount of time spent it it.
On one hand it‘s great to feel more confident with your smartphone usage, but on the other hand it‘s also incredible to see that reflected in the numbers.
