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As a young millennial, I had a pretty tech-free childhood, save for cable television and the occasional AOL/AIM log-on. It wasn’t until I was a preteen that I started to get interested in MySpace, Xanga, and eventually, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. I got an iPhone in high school, and basically, I’ve had some form of social media for around 20 years, as old as that makes me sound.
I’ve long known I spend too much time on my phone (I have an excruciating memory of someone in high school telling me, “oh, but you’re always on Facebook!”) but any attempts that I’ve taken to curb my phone usage without full-on deleting social media for periods at a time have been, so far, unsuccessful. That’s why I was excited when I had the opportunity to test the “Brick” — a physical device that blocks my access to any app that I find is wasting my time and killing my attention. It’s been nothing short of transformative.
The way Brick, a small magnetic square, works, is that you download the corresponding Brick app, decide which apps you want to block when you “Brick” your phone (I chose Instagram and TikTok) and when you’re ready to Brick it, you simply tap your phone to the square. You basically cannot unBrick your phone unless you can physically tap your phone against the Brick, although you do get FIVE “emergency” unBricks if needed.
The apps you don’t want to use are instantly blocked; if you try to go to them, which I did many times on impulse the first time I bricked my phone, all you see is a message that says “You’ve turned Instagram off. Your phone is currently Bricked. To access this app, tap your Brick.” (At the bottom of the screen, rather than a button to “Ignore” that your phone is bricked, it says “Back to living.” When you tap it, you go back to your phone’s home screen.)
If you choose to let the app do so, it will constantly run a timer on your home screen showing how long it’s been since you started Bricking your phone. I like that feature — it gamifies the experience of not being on my phone, so I’m invested in running up the clock as long as I can.
Why I Love Brick and How It’s Curbed My Screen Time
For as long as the iPhone has had screen time limits, where you can either delay for 15 minutes, one minute, or fully ignore, I have had them on my phone. The screen time limits worked at first, but after the first week of using them, they’ve been little more than a suggestion. I regularly “ignore” the limits when scrolling on my feeds at night, for example.
The Brick, on the other hand, is a stickier experience. What I mean by that is that the design is more strict — it’s actively harder to disable the Brick setting. It’s way more of a choice to go to my kitchen, where I placed the square on my fridge, tap my phone against the app, and check out social media than it is on the classic iPhone screen time limit app. Plus, it makes it so that if I leave my house with my phone on the Brick setting, I can’t use social media until I’m back at home, putting hours of time between me and the scroll.
One of my favorite features that I didn’t expect was that timer that is on my phone home screen that shows me how long my phone has been Bricked. I didn’t think about it at first, but I really like the gamified nature of the design. It also feels exactly the opposite of the iPhone screen time limit function. The iPhone will let you know when you have about 5 minutes left of your screen time limit, making it feel like I’m running out of time to use my Instagram and keeping me on it until the end. But with the Brick counting up, rather than down, I feel like I’m working toward something — the mental calm of not scrolling every free second I have — and I keep my phone Bricked for longer.
Unfortunately, being off my phone in such a way for a long period of time made me really feel how much I use it as a crutch and a distraction. That first day I had my phone Bricked, I must have tried to open Instagram or Tiktok about a dozen times in the first hour, out of pure habit.
It made me realize how often I opened the apps, even if it was just for a minute at a time. Walking from one room to another? Why not bring my phone with me and open my feeds? Waiting for my shower to warm up? Why don’t I just see if anyone’s messaged me on Instagram? Waiting for my coffee to brew? What’s going on with TikTok? Ad nauseum. Not even having the option to check these apps for just 30 seconds transformed my day, not just in the sense that it gave me little bits of time back, but also in the sense that it just reduced the mental clutter that these apps take up in my mind.
Then there’s the obvious stuff — not being able to look at my phone when hanging out with friends has made me more present, and having my phone Bricked overnight has made it so that my phone is not literally the second thing I look at in the morning (after I turn off my Hatch alarm clock, another device I have used to limit my screen time at night and in the morning).
And then there’s the best part of it all — it makes my screen time more of a treat. I am not someone who can delete social media totally, as it’s an important part of finding stories, products, and trends for work. Plus, it really is (to me) an important way to keep up with friends and family, and I find social media fun. (Otherwise I wouldn’t be on it at all!) So at the end of the day, or when I’m eating lunch, if I let myself have a little bit more phone time, it’s way more fun to be on, because it feels like a treat, not something I am compelled to open, stay caught up on, and scroll through. And then, perhaps paradoxically, the truth is that the more time I spend off my phone, while being on it is a treat, I feel like it’s a treat that’s only fun for a little bit. In other words, I don’t feel like I have to stay caught up as much as I used to. Then I get back to living, as Brick intends.
Buy: Brick, $47.20
