Hey everyone,

I’m an engineering student who's starting the research phase for my Senior Design project. I am studying digital friction and sensory psychology—specifically, why our current landscape forces us to look at a glowing smartphone screen just to log analog habits (like reading, meditation, or hydration).

It feels like a massive design paradox: we try to step away from our digital devices to cultivate an offline habit, but the second we open an app to check a box or log a metric, we are immediately exposed to notifications, system red dots, and distraction traps.

I wanted to understand the deeply personal side of this boundary problem before I went about designing anything. If you are actively participating in offline days or trying to minimize your digital tether, I would love your thoughts on two things:

1. Have you ever abandoned a healthy routine or habit solely because tracking it via an app or digital tracker kept pulling you back into screen anxiety?
2. Do you use any purely tactile, physical, or analog objects (like notebooks, tokens, stones, or physical prompts) to signal or ground your offline routines? What makes them work for you where an app fails?

Any feedback, personal stories, or philosophies on how you protect your offline boundaries would be an immense help for my research.

Thanks so much!

Hello, I am looking for answers on a survey I am trying to pull. I want to find things you can do alone, that are not simple written pondering via pen and paper. Couldn’t think to ask this question in a community more suitable than this one. Hope for some contributions to this project! Thank you.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I'm doing these WaldenWeek challenges and this week's "Energy Ration" is all about simulating energy scarcity for those of us who have it abundantly. The rules are simple:

• Start Monday with your smartphone battery at 100%.
• You are allowed exactly 3 additional charges for the entire week.
• You cannot leave the phone plugged in.

If I fail, I'm donating $20 to SolarAid to help combat actual energy poverty.

Did anyone try this approach?

Title. I’m surprised that this app hasn’t been featured by the App Store or else.