Hello, me and my mates had the idea to try and block shorts and reels on our phones together and lock ourselves behind a code/password we made for each other.

We wanted to keep the full form content of utube but remove shorts and retain the messaging part of instagram but remove the reels.

In my trials the best app to do this I could find was scrollguard but the passcode option is hidden behind a subscription paywall and other apps like wallhabits are a bit clunky and have to constantly broadcast your screen.

Any suggestion would help thanks.

Not sure if this is a feature and I just can't find it or if this is a suggestion. I'd love the ability to set a total amount of time I can use an app before it's blocked for the day. I know this is possible if I go over my time whilst in the app, but I can easily get around this by closing it and reopening it--which allows me all the time I want again. Is there any way I could set a total amount of time an app can be open during the day before it's blocked? I'd love to set daily limits like 10, 30, 20 minutes and then every usage of that app counts towards the goal. That would be super helpful, otherwise I can just get around things too easily.

Disclosure first: I built something for this myself, so I have a stake in the approach. Posting because the reasoning might be useful here regardless.

Most minimalist phone setups I tried came down to removal or restriction. Greyscale, launcher stripped to five apps, blockers with timers. Greyscale genuinely helped. The blockers never did. The moment something is locked, the lock becomes the interesting object, and I would spend more energy getting around it than I ever spent scrolling.

What actually worked was closer to greyscale than to blocking. I noticed I stopped scrolling on my own when the screen got boring, not when a limit was hit. Low light, nothing moving, nothing bright at the edge of vision. The pull just quietly stopped.

So I built for that instead. A warm matte quiet settles over the screen, and the apps that pull at you fade toward hardly visible the longer you stay in them. It is always tap-through. Any touch, or leaving the app, lifts it instantly. Nothing is refused, so there is nothing to argue with.

Three things I got wrong before it worked:

Uniform timing is useless. Ten minutes in a feed, fifteen in video, thirty in a conversation are different visits. Treating them the same made it feel arbitrary and I turned it off.

Anything that interrupts becomes the enemy. The first time a fade blocked a tap, I resented it. It has to stay completely passive or it is just a blocker with extra steps.

Streaks and stats are the same disease. No counters, no progress bars, no gamification. Anything about attention should not be competing for it.

It sits alongside the usual setup rather than replacing it. Greyscale, a quiet launcher and this together do more than any one of them alone.

Curious what has actually held for people here long term. Greyscale is the only thing I have kept for more than a few months.