The Unexpected Solution to Screen Time Woes: A Simple Brick
I’ve had screen time limits on my iPhone for years, allowing me to spend 30 minutes on social media each day. How many times have I ignored the limit notification and continued watching stupid Reels? I would be horrified to find out.
Turns out all along I needed a $59 piece of gray plastic (self-discipline would have been more affordable, but it was out of stock). The Brick – a magnetic gadget the size of a matchbox – has accomplished what no screen time app has ever achieved. It actually helped me use my phone less and improve my sleep habits.
Image credits:Brick (opens in a new window)
How Brick Works: A Physical Solution to a Digital Problem
Brick stands out from your standard screen time app because it goes even deeper into the physical world. The gadget is a branded, NFC-enabled square that only lets you turn off your custom screen time limits if you place your phone on Brick, just like buying something at a Tap-to-pay kiosk. Apparently, if I have to physically get up and put my phone on Brick to go to Instagram, I won’t go to Instagram.
“Brick was born out of a personal need: Our phones were getting in the way of our lives,” co-founder Zach Nasgowitz told TechCrunch via email. “We looked for solutions to this problem in our lives, but found that nothing was really working, so we decided to build something ourselves that would solve this problem.”
Improving Sleep Hygiene with Brick
I’ve used Brick to help me improve my sleep hygiene and I’m embarrassed to say that it works even better than I could have hoped.
Like many other millennials — especially those of us whose jobs are very Internet-connected — I have a bad habit of going to bed at night and mindlessly scrolling on my phone, which makes it harder to sleep. Even worse, sometimes when I wake up I end up lying in bed on my phone and start the day feeling groggy.
I created a “Sleep” mode on the Brick app, which turns on every night at 10:30 a.m. Then my phone automatically blocks all apps except messaging apps (I want to be reachable, just in case) and audio apps (I sometimes listen to podcasts or audiobooks to help me sleep). When I wake up, I can’t waste time on my phone unless I get out of bed, go downstairs, and tap my phone to Brick. (If you want to leave your phone out of your bedroom completely, but use podcasts as a sleep aid, I suggest the Dreamie Alarm Clock.)
The Challenge of Changing Habits
It’s hard to admit that I needed a $59 piece of plastic to change my lifestyle, but without Brick it would be too easy for me to fall back into my old habits. I tested a Brick that the company sent me to review, and it was so effective that I’m going to purchase one so I can continue using it (we return or donate our review units for ethical reasons). If you really want, you can even try to DIY something like a brick using an NFC tag and Apple shortcuts.
“Software-only solutions like Screen Time and Digital Wellbeing are easy to circumvent, and what really works is adding friction,” Brick co-founder TJ Driver told TechCrunch via email. “This allowed physical technology to come into play to create a true separation that a software prompt cannot replicate. By requiring you to physically return to the device to unlock your apps, the decision to reconnect becomes an intentional decision rather than an unconscious reflex.”
Flexibility and Control over Screen Time
Users have a small number of “emergency unlocks,” just in case you’re out of town when your phone freezes and you really need a specific app, like Google Maps or Uber, to get home safely. But I find it easier to just group these apps into my sleep mode for the rare occasions when I’m behind, so I don’t need to waste an emergency unlock. It doesn’t affect my sleep knowing that I can open the Uber app. I don’t doomscroll on Uber.
Image credits:Brick, screenshots from TechCrunch
“Rather than constantly relying on willpower, it may be more effective to design your environment so that it doesn’t always tax your willpower or your brain,” Driver said. “Products like Brick help people choose how they want their phone to best serve them for a given moment or task, and then design their digital environment so they don’t have to think about it anymore.”
Why Brick Resonates with Users
This focus on personalization and agency is what has made the product work for so many customers.
“One user had wanted a dumb phone for years, but couldn’t give up his main texting app, KakaoTalk, to communicate with his wife and friends based in Korea,” Nasgowitz said. “He shared, ‘Brick turned my phone into what I always wanted: a phone that can text, call, take photos, and use Kakao. It’s perfect.'”
People are becoming more and more interested in the move to “dumb phones” as they become more and more disillusioned with Big Tech. But flip phones aren’t made for our current lifestyle, where we scan our phones instead of printing concert tickets, use our phones to pay for subway tickets, and have jobs that require us to use specific two-factor authentication apps. (Some companies, like Dumb.Co and Commodore, are trying to fix this problem by hacking flip phones to load apps like Authenticators and WhatsApp, or by building new hardware altogether.)
If you’re nervous about making a more extreme change, like buying a flip phone, Brick is a happy medium: it works, but it’s not as drastic an intervention. You can make your phone as stupid as you want, whenever you want.
“When you zoom out and think about the screen time movement as a whole, it’s not about rejecting technology,” Driver said. “It’s about reclaiming your agency and being intentional again.”
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