{"id":22905,"date":"2026-04-29T15:37:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/29\/im-addicted-to-checking-my-phone-could-a-blocking-device-stop-me\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T15:37:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:37:50","slug":"im-addicted-to-checking-my-phone-could-a-blocking-device-stop-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/29\/im-addicted-to-checking-my-phone-could-a-blocking-device-stop-me\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m addicted to checking my phone. Could a blocking device stop me?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Physical phone blocking devices, powered by NFC wireless technology, are becoming a popular solution for doomscrolling. Brigid Delaney puts one to the test<\/p>\n

Wake up, 100 messages from group chat overnight about something \u2013 what? another assassination attempt; a village destroyed in Lebanon; the football result in England; the weather in Iran being manipulated; the pesticides causing lung and bowel cancer, so everyone who eats salads is now at risk of cancer; meditate for 20 minutes, then fire up x.com, a place I thought I\u2019d never want to revisit, with its carnival barkers and supplement salesman, and have you seen the Lego thing calling Trump a paedo?, you gotta see the Lego thing<\/em>, and this is before my first coffee, yet x.com is the coffee and the tea<\/em>, whatever Elon has done to the For You algorithm is evil genius<\/a>, it\u2019s like the global collective id, nasty and funny and addictive and compelling \u2013 like gawking at a car crash, like soaking in a hot bubble bath of anger, and memes, and geopolitical dramas, and Trump, Trump, Trump \u2013 soaking in Trump, and then, For Me (just as Elon promised).<\/p>\n

So begins the circuit around my phone<\/a>, that goes all day and night, around the tiny screen with its icons (when a born-again Christian once told me he had favourite icons, for a long time I thought he meant apps, not pictures of the Virgin Mary). I started to feel like I was in Canberra, on one of those enormous roundabouts, rotating between the icons \u2013 not Joseph, not Jesus, but X and WhatsApp and TikTok and even LinkedIn for Christ sakes \u2013 round and round from one app to the next, just checking, checking in case something is happening. I watched tiny videos and maybe, occasionally, got distracted by the novel I am meant to be writing, which is due on 31 July. But the novel is boring, just a static Word doc on a screen, it\u2019s not giving<\/em>; it\u2019s taking hard work. So I spend six minutes with my novel, and then it\u2019s time to go back to my phone, to circle the roundabout visiting all my icons again, like a demented Stations of the Cross, because I can\u2019t focus, I just can\u2019t focus on work right now when there is so much good scrolling to do \u2026<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nPhysical phone blocking devices, powered by NFC wireless technology, are becoming a popular solution for doomscrolling. Brigid Delaney puts one to the test
\nWake up, 100 messages from group chat overnight about something \u2013 what? another assassination attempt; a village destroyed in Lebanon; the football result in England; the weather in Iran being manipulated; the pesticides causing lung and bowel cancer, so everyone who eats salads is now at risk of cancer; meditate for 20 minutes, then fire up x.com, a place I thought I\u2019d never want to revisit, with its carnival barkers and supplement salesman, and have you seen the Lego thing calling Trump a paedo?, you gotta see the Lego thing, and this is before my first coffee, yet x.com is the coffee and the tea, whatever Elon has done to the For You algorithm is evil genius, it\u2019s like the global collective id, nasty and funny and addictive and compelling \u2013 like gawking at a car crash, like soaking in a hot bubble bath of anger, and memes, and geopolitical dramas, and Trump, Trump, Trump \u2013 soaking in Trump, and then, For Me (just as Elon promised).
\nSo begins the circuit around my phone, that goes all day and night, around the tiny screen with its icons (when a born-again Christian once told me he had favourite icons, for a long time I thought he meant apps, not pictures of the Virgin Mary). I started to feel like I was in Canberra, on one of those enormous roundabouts, rotating between the icons \u2013 not Joseph, not Jesus, but X and WhatsApp and TikTok and even LinkedIn for Christ sakes \u2013 round and round from one app to the next, just checking, checking in case something is happening. I watched tiny videos and maybe, occasionally, got distracted by the novel I am meant to be writing, which is due on 31 July. But the novel is boring, just a static Word doc on a screen, it\u2019s not giving; it\u2019s taking hard work. So I spend six minutes with my novel, and then it\u2019s time to go back to my phone, to circle the roundabout visiting all my icons again, like a demented Stations of the Cross, because I can\u2019t focus, I just can\u2019t focus on work right now when there is so much good scrolling to do \u2026 Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Physical phone blocking devices, powered by NFC wireless technology, are becoming a popular solution for doomscrolling. Brigid Delaney puts one to the test Wake up, 100 messages from group chat overnight about something \u2013 what? another assassination attempt; a village destroyed in Lebanon; the football result in England; the weather in Iran being manipulated; the …<\/p>\n

I\u2019m addicted to checking my phone. Could a blocking device stop me?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":22906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22905"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}