ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Brick is a $59 machine that blocks you from accessing your most-used apps
- It helped me develop a greater relationship to my cellphone
- Its optimistic reinforcements work higher than opponents or Display screen Cut-off dates.
nov / 2025
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As each side of our working and social life is digitized, display habit has change into much less an exception to our way of life and extra a broadly accepted attribute of it. I see this mostly once I ask my buddies, household, and coworkers what number of hours a day they spend on their telephones. The solutions range from three to eight hours.
I common round 4 hours of my day on my cellphone, checking emails, responding to texts, scrolling social media, and checking the climate. That is 4 hours I may very well be spending studying a e-book, writing an article, studying predict the climate, calling a liked one, and doing something in addition to checking the time suck and mind rot that’s social media websites and messaging apps.
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Each October, as common daylight dwindles and my vitality ranges deplete, this sense of realized helplessness by the hands of know-how involves a head. I’ve no vitality to stand up from my mattress. It takes me some time to construct the braveness to transit to the gymnasium. What do I do as an alternative? I sit on my mattress and I scroll.
I scroll by way of monetary recommendation posts telling me that I needs to be investing far more out there than I already am, I scroll by way of engagements and weddings my former classmates are celebrating, I scroll by way of reactionary content material strangers publish on the web for clicks, and I scroll by way of among the most sinister information my eyes can see and my mind can fathom. All this content material is mixed in, and I let it wash over me like I am mendacity on the sands of a pathetic ocean.
As soon as I attain this level, I delete my social media apps. I attempt to put my cellphone in one other room whereas I work, eat, and do chores round the home. I create a stricter schedule and power myself to go away the home extra. Then, every week or two later, as soon as I’ve returned to my pure, steady, ripen, not rotten, mind, I redownload all these apps. Maybe it is only a few weeks or months, however the cycle continues.
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I’ve tried the deadlines, the app blockers, and utilizing social media on a browser as an alternative of the app itself. So this October, I attempted one thing new. I had seen protection of the corporate Brick and its miracle-working machine that successfully locks customers out of their high-demand apps. Individuals had claimed the minimalistic, magnetic dice gave them their time again. I will be the decide of that, I assumed to myself.
The parents at Brick despatched me a tool, which I instantly started testing upon reception and have been for the previous few weeks. TL:DR? This machine has accomplished numbers on my relationship with my most addictive apps. Here is how.
The way it works
Brick is a grey, magnetic sq. with a suitable app. Upon downloading the app, an individual selects the apps they wish to disable as soon as their cellphone is bricked. Brick makes use of NFC know-how, which can be present in contactless funds, digital wallets like Apple Pay, and safe entry controls, corresponding to digital keycards used to realize entry into buildings, to allow and disable app use. Tapping the brick, or “bricking,” blocks the usage of these apps till the cellphone is tapped as soon as once more and “unbricked.”
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You possibly can arrange schedules to dam apps throughout particular instances of the day and modes to dam sure sorts of apps. I started testing the product by making a mode that blocks my most-used apps, specifically Messages, Instagram, Fb, Threads, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Brick provides you 5 free “unbricks” you should use in an emergency, if you aren’t close to the bodily Brick.
My expertise ‘Bricking’ my iPhone
I have never arrange a schedule but, as a result of I am happy bricking my machine upon my very own volition and unbricking once I have to test messages or posts from buddies. Bricking the machine once I acknowledge my very own want for distance from my cellphone felt like a straightforward first step at curbing my cellphone habit. A schedule felt too stringent. I can see the scheduling function changing into handier as soon as I’ve spent a number of weeks bricking my cellphone and developed much less of a reliance on recurrently checking it, of which I am nonetheless engaged on.
My cellphone utilization is the worst (and makes me really feel the worst) whereas I am at dwelling. Scrolling by way of social media between subway stops or checking messages often on the workplace is not my subject. It is the hours I spend losing as soon as I get dwelling from a busy day of labor, or the time I spend losing away on the weekends that I may very well be dedicating to hobbies.
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In order that’s the place I primarily use the Brick. My roommates, nonetheless, have used the Brick earlier than studying on the park, and so they reported that it helped them focus longer. One Monday night time, I bricked my cellphone after which journal for 90 minutes, fully and completely undisturbed.
I like bricking my cellphone earlier than bedtime, which, within the phrases of my roommate, seems like “shutting the house pc down on the finish of the night time.” On occasion, I will be mendacity in mattress and remembering I wish to test an app or ship a textual content.
Doing so would power me out of my mattress, down an extended hallway, and into the kitchen to unbrick my cellphone. It made me rethink my cellphone utilization selections.
Within the morning, after waking, I will go to my kitchen, the place my Brick is caught on the fridge, and unbrick my cellphone. This offers me round an hour earlier than work, throughout which I can compensate for messages and the each day happenings.
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Then, as soon as I start work, I brick my cellphone once more. After at the very least an hour of zero distractions, I will reward myself with a fast unbrick. I test my messages or scroll for a couple of minutes and rebrick. It is just like the Pomodoro impact, however for cellphone habit.
Working with out the fixed pings or easy accessibility to social media jogs my memory of the productiveness I’d have whereas doing my homework on an airplane earlier than Wi-Fi turned out there — that undeterred, distraction-free form of productiveness and clearheadedness that comes with disconnection from the skin world.
Why it really works for me
Brick makes entry to my most-used apps a privilege I really feel like I need to earn by way of endurance, quite than one thing I can take with no consideration at any time when I might like. It additionally jogs my memory that the variety of instances I test my cellphone to see if somebody has reached out is disproportionate to the variety of notifications I obtain per hour. In brief, there isn’t any want for me to be checking it as usually as I’m.
Not like a display time notification or restrict, which is enabled as soon as somebody reaches their each day app restrict, Brick positively reinforces my time spent with out my apps. A widget pops up when you brick your machine, displaying a timer exhibiting how lengthy you have been offline since bricking.
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It straight contrasts the unfavourable reinforcement that’s the “You’ve got reached your each day Instagram restrict” notifications I obtain by way of Display screen Time. Within the app, you too can see how a lot time you have spent bricking every day. All these options and touches assist me construct the case for myself that I can truly go with out these apps for extended intervals.
What I might wish to see improved
You need not brick your machine to provoke a schedule, say at 9 a.m., as soon as you have began work. However you’ll need your Brick readily available at 5 p.m., if you wish to unbrick your machine. That is irritating when you’re not in the identical location as your Brick as soon as the clock strikes 5 p.m., however there is a workaround, which a good friend let me in on.
If you wish to unbrick your cellphone after the allotted brick time is over in your schedule, my good friend really helpful creating one other schedule instantly after your first schedule ends, after which unbricking a random app. This allows the scheduling function and unbricks the specified apps with out requiring the bodily machine.
My good friend additionally talked about how Brick did not register his change in time zones when he was touring, one thing he’d like Brick to enhance.
ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation
I extremely suggest Brick when you battle with recurrently checking your cellphone or losing time on social media. Throughout the first full week I used it, my display time decreased by 7%. Its optimistic reinforcements, quite than admonishments if you’ve gone over your allotted display time, incrementally construct the case that you may, certainly, go with out these apps.
I might suggest this most to individuals in search of a productiveness increase — whether or not that is one you are looking for out on or off the job. After bricking my cellphone one night time, I made a decision to go on a not-so-addictive however still-distracting app earlier than mattress. I watched one YouTube video for round two minutes, till I noticed I may very well be studying my e-book as an alternative. I am unsure if I’d have made that selection with out Brick.
I do know, $59 is a excessive value to pay for self-control. Nonetheless, from my expertise with the machine, it’s value it for the standard of life improve and the long-desired autonomy from my units that I’ve regained.
