IRONIC? –

Dec. 14, 2022 -“We’ve all been there,” Riedel, 27, says. “I started to question myself, like, ‘Why is this happening?’ And then of course, as an app developer, I tried to find solutions.”

The solution Riedel settled upon was simple: remove the element of instant gratification that makes opening social media apps so addictive. He designed an app that would activate whenever his finger clicked the Instagram icon, and force him to wait for about 10 seconds before continuing. During the intermission, the app would invite him to take a deep breath. Just by introducing that tiny element of friction, Riedel discovered, his social media use began to decline drastically.

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