// Guide · Doomscrolling
12:32. One more. 1:12. How?
The feed has no last page. You meant to check one thing, and now it is past one and tomorrow is already worse. Willpower at 1 AM is the weakest it gets all day, so the fixes that work are the ones you set up while you still care.
1. Make opening the app take longer
Move the apps off your home screen, or log out so getting back in means a password. Small friction works more than it sounds. In a study of a pause-before-opening app, people closed the app again on 36% of attempts once the pause appeared.
2. Charge the phone across the room
If the phone is out of reach from the bed, scrolling means getting up. Use a cheap alarm clock so the phone isn’t your alarm.
3. Set a hard stop that someone else controls
iPhone Downtime and app limits only block when a Screen Time passcode exists and Block at End of Limit is on. If you set the passcode yourself, you know it, so let someone else set it.
Apple: set app limits in Screen Time (the same settings as on iPhone)
4. Know what you want the hour for
Stopping is easier when something specific is waiting: a chapter, a show you’ll actually finish, sleep before one. When researchers paid people to leave Facebook for four weeks, the freed time went to offline life, reported well-being went up, and many used Facebook less even after the month ended.
5. Use a blocker that asks why
If you keep tapping past your own limits, the limit needs to belong to something that can say no. That is what Aegin is for.
There is no Ignore button. The way in early is to plead your case. You type what you want to open and why, and the Judge, an AI that reads your reason against your own record, answers yes, not yet, or no. It can refuse.
You also don’t write rules. Aegin sorts your apps into three groups: Feeds (short video and social), Pull (games and long video) and Protected (anything you need, never locked). Feeds open in short windows and then rest. In the first week the rest is 15 minutes, about the length of one urge. After that it grows a step every few days, and a step only comes once you held two of your last three days. Nothing jumps, and nothing steps back on a bad day.
Aegin is free to start, and the limits work on the free plan. Pro is $12.99 a month or $99.99 a year in the US, and prices differ by country.
Try the Judge first
Tell it what you want to open and why, in your browser, with no account. Then decide.
Who wrote this. Aegin makes a competing product, so read this as information from an interested party. Every claim about another product links to its source, and prices are the US prices we read on the date below.
Names. Apple, Instagram, Reels, Facebook are the trademarks of their owners and are used only to identify the products discussed. No affiliation or endorsement is implied.
Right of reply. If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Last reviewed 12 October 2026.