one sec forces you to take a deep breath whenever you open social media apps. It’s as simple as effective: You will reduce your social media usage just by becoming aware of it. one sec is the focus app that tackles the problem of unconscious social media use at its root. It is designed to change your habits on a long-term basis.
You just wanted to check that one message – and ended up scrolling for 30 minutes on Instagram? Social media companies use psychological traps to keep you hooked and spend as much time on their apps as possible. Time that could be spent so much better – with your family and friends, getting work done or for your hobbies and wellbeing.
Our social media habits are the outcome of psychological mechanisms that apps trigger in our brains. They use the system of instant gratification which releases dopamine whenever we perceive a like or a message on our phone.
one sec’s approach is to break those habits. By making you wait longer for social media to open, your brain loses interest in those (destructive) short-term dopamine hits.
Many apps and tools block social media for a limited amount of time to help you focus. This might increase your productivity for the moment, but the real problem – your habitual urge to check apps and websites to get that dopamine boost – stays.
Setting up “one sec” takes a few minutes, but it's worth the investment. Before “one sec”, I used to open Instagram up to 40 times a day (based on eight hours of sleep that’s every 24 minutes). After three days with the app, I was down to five daily doses of Instagram; again, a week later, the muscle memory of my thumb, which previously remotely controlled the Instagram icon, had been overwritten. I went on Instagram exactly once to see a video of a dog balancing rice cakes on his head.
Paul Hofmann; March 2022; fluter.de
Realize and question every single attempt to use social media.
one sec works fully automated and is triggered by every attempt to open the app or website of your choice. You will be forced to take a deep breath and then decide: Do you really want to spend time there? Or was it just an impulse out of boredom or stress?
Configure one sec to get triggered whenever you open Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, TikTok or any other app on your iPhone or Android device.
No matter if it’s a news site, your favorite forum or adult content – keep yourself from wasting time on any website. It’s the same effective technique and configuration only takes a few minutes.
If configured, one sec forces you to set an intention for opening apps. By thinking about your planned actions in the app beforehand, you will spend less time doing anything else.
Keep catching yourself scrolling through social media feeds for ages – even though the plan was only to read that one message? This is over now.
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.
During Focus Sessions, one sec won‘t allow you to open any of the configured apps – and there‘s nothing you can do about it. Enjoy pure focus and finally get things done!
one sec visualizes your progress in nice diagrams and comparisons.
See how much time you’ve saved already – watching your progress reflected in numbers is incredibly motivating!
Breathing Exercise
Forces you to take a deep breath before opening the target app.
Minimal Breathing Exercise
A simple version of the breathing exercise.
Follow the Dot
Follow the dot with your finger for 10 seconds to unlock the target app.
Black Screen
Your screen turns black for 10 seconds before allowing you to continue to the target app.
Rotate Phone
Rotate your phone three times around its axis to unlock the target app.
Mirror
Look in your own eyes and tell yourself that you really want to open that app right now.
Set up concrete, healthy alternatives to help you get away from your social media habits: looking at family photos, doing sports, calling a friend, drinking water, reading a book, or listening to music are all great alternatives that will be suggested right when you need them.
“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
one sec doesn’t only help you to stay focused for a limited amount of time. It is designed to change your habits – and free you from social media distractions in the long term.
Unlike other apps, I don‘t sell or analyze your data. I can‘t even look at it. It remains private to you, offline, on-device and might be uploaded to your private iCloud container if you choose to do so.
Convince yourself of one sec’s effect before spending any money.
Configuration for one app or website is completely free.
The positive effects of one sec were shown by a recent study I conducted in cooperation with the University of Heidelberg and Max Planck Institute, one of Germany’s leading research institutes.6
1. Average time per day spent by online users on social media in 4th quarter 2020, by territory: Statista.
2. Betul Keles, Niall McCrae & Annmarie Grealish (2020) A systematic review: the influence of social media on depression, anxiety and psychological distress in adolescents, International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 25:1, 79-93, doi: 10.1080/02673843.2019.1590851
3. Moreno M, Riddle K, Jenkins MC, Singh AP, Zhao Q, Eickhoff J. Measuring Problematic Internet Use, Internet Gaming Disorder, and Social Media Addiction in Young Adults: Cross-sectional Survey Study. JMIR Public Health Surveill 2022;8(1):e27719, doi: 10.2196/27719
4. Julia Brailovskaia, Fabienne Ströse, Holger Schillack, Jürgen Margraf. Less Facebook use – More well-being and a healthier lifestyle? An experimental intervention study. Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 108, 2020, 106332, ISS 0747-5632, doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2020.106332
5. Dominik Schott. Wie Sie den unbewussten Griff zum Handy vermeiden. Spiegel Online.
6. David Grünin, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Frederik Riedel. Max Planck Institut, Uni Mannheim: Directing smart-phone use via one sec: Testing a self-nudge app in the wild. 2022. doi: 10.31234/osf.io/nwuar
