I was addicted to TV when I was in high school. After school I alwys lied down in front of a tv for few hours. Switching channels, getting a little bit entertained but more and more tired.
When I wanted to break that routine I asked my mom to put a parental lock on the TV.
Even though TV showed jo channel for me I still lied down in front of it, twiddled with remote. Sometimes for many minutes. My dumb brain gradually learned that TV is not fun anymore (not that it was much fun in the first place).
I think similar mechanism might help you shake off your app addiction.
Not sure if this tool does this but maybe you could even have you fake facebook app show you static screenshot of facebook and let you scroll up and down a bit. You might have additional twists like scrolling locking up after few minutes forcing you to abandon or restart. Or maybe screenshot might be blurred a bit.
This is the exact feeling that I have had recently when trying to cut the phone addiction. I deleted all games and social networks from my phone, then turned it to black and white. It's still tough since I can just go to reddit or hacker news on the browser, not much I can do about that since even flip phones have internet. The interesting thing was that my phone pick ups remained the same for a week or so, but the time on my phone when dramatically down.
The disturbing part is that even weeks later, if I am really bored I will reach for my phone and pick it up. There just isn't much to do on there anymore, so I put it down. I think I'm going to start leaving it places altogether so I lose the habit of having it on my at all times.
Good on you for realizing that as a teenager. I use to read the TV section of the newspaper and plan a binge for a few hours. That was a different pattern to switching channels. I was extremely bored of the kind of TV you'd see if it was just unplanned "let's see whats on..."
I used to remove apps but I'd end up re-installing them after a while. Unlearning a habit (aka forming a new habits to replace the old one) is about having a cue. The fake app acts as a cue/signal to remind you about your goal and boost learning the new habit of not visiting the app randomly based on the habit.
By installing the fake app, you'll be surprised how many times you unconsciously you open them, although you are aware that they are fake apps. It feels like our brain is on auto-pilot, once we're hooked/addicted to unconsciously open addictive apps.
@faeyanpiraat described it very well:
"It can put an icon on your homescreen looking like an app that you want to stop using. Then when you try to instinctively open for example twitter, a simple page comes up that counts how many times you tried opening it. To make it work open the page, click a popular app click the install button then follow the instructions."
We're far from having a good UX, so please feel free to provide your suggestions, or contribute directly to the repo (it's open source).
I asked a related question 2 days ago. This is a great idea. But how does one make money selling such ideas/apps? Do we make partnerships? Do we list the app on appstore for a small amount? Any other ideas?
That appears to be the current xkcd comic (published 2019-07-31), but the github for this application has commits going back a month, with the domain registered on 2019-07-06, so I think it is likely a coincidence or the inspiration goes the other way.
We don't store anything, everything is in the localstorage. We only use Google Analytics without any custom code, we don't use it to track specific metrics.
The app is open-source, you can have a look at the code.
It’s anonymous data. I don’t see how getting data on which applications are getting hits and around what times they occur is violating anyone’s privacy.
It can put an icon on your homescreen looking like an app that you want to stop using. Then when you try to instinctively open for example twitter, a simple page comes up that counts how many times you tried opening it. To make it work open the page, click a popular app click the install button then follow the instructions.
That's a technical description of what it does. But what is the benefit, compared to just uninstalling the real app?
Edit: I can kind of see how it might work for some people: just uninstalling a 'toxic' app like Twitter doesn't always work for long, as you can usually still go on the website, or even reinstall it absent-mindedly (e.g. when drunk or low on willpower). Having a fake app on your homescreen might help as a sort of reinforcement tool in those situations. For example, when you want to go on Twitter, you open the fake app, and because it's missing the usual toxic notification dopamine hit, you can gradually unlearn the association. Maybe.
Edit 2: I made the above edit before seeing the replies :)
I used to remove apps but I'd end up re-installing them after a while. Unlearning a habit (aka forming a new habits to replace the old one) is about having a proper cue (referring to the habit loop from the "The Power of Habit" book). The fake app acts as a cue/signal to remind you about your goal and boost learning the new habit of not visiting the app randomly based on the habit.
By installing the fake app, you'll be surprised how many times you unconsciously you open them, although you are aware that they are fake apps. It feels like our brain is on auto-pilot, once we're hooked/addicted to instinctively open addictive apps.
We don't store anything, everything is in the localstorage. We only use Google Analytics without any custom code, we don't use it to track specific metrics.
The app is open-source, you can have a look at the code.
It has clearer instructions for sure, but you got the icons right (at least for Instagram, the borders are rounded). It's enough to make me use it! Because the ones from detoxyfy are pure square on my home screen, and just because of that I know there's something wrong and I don't tap. Plus on yours I still get stats after 2 openings ;-)
If you reload the page 3 times, it blurs out the counter and message. While I see that this is to make people donate, it would be pretty nice to state, that in order to see it again - you must donate. I was thinking it was a bug at first.
Thanks I updated the message with "For us, in order to be able to cover our server costs, we ask our users to contribute a tiny amount if they find the app useful. Donate to see the detox counter again." I basically added "Donate to see the detox counter again." what do you think ?
$3 donation is never going to get us rich, especially when the conversation rate for such apps are normally below 5% of the user base. The primary reason for asking donation is to measure and validate your idea. One of the way to check your market-fit is to who's freely willing to pay for it.
The other reason is to cover our Heroku cost ($7 per month) and any other costs (e.g. domain name, the time we put in making/maintaining it, etc.). Nevertheless, please can just ignore and continue using the app for free.
But thanks for the feedback, you are right about the message, we thought it's too long to describe it all, but we'll try to come up with a better and clearer message.
Just say you want money for your app. Put a pay-what-you-want or heck, bill for it monthly.
I really don't think it's the right idea to blatantly lie, it's quite obvious that server costs are negligible here. No one is denying your work or effort.
> "For us, in order to be able to cover our server costs, we ask our users to contribute a tiny amount if they find the app useful. Donate to see the detox counter again."
As far as this message goes, I'd just remove the word "server". We all know that's not the only cost associated, so pointing it out as the only cost seems... dishonest? Maybe you'd want to link the word "costs" to a web page that elaborates on the costs a bit. Not with concrete numbers, but more like percentages: 60% on the time maintaining it, 10% for the server and domain(s) etc.
As far as the funding model goes, I feel like pay-what-you-want would be a good strategy for this use case, but that's up to you to decide. I'm certainly bad at monetizing my projects, so I'm in no position to make suggestions.
This is a static site that tricks users into using it, then after several uses disables functionality and demands a "donation" to cover server costs, but the person asking how much the server actually costs is being a jerk?
You don't have to use it. It is a service, not a human right. The question about margins on this thing is a perfectly valid one however, but do we all think that when we buy something in a store that nobody makes a profit?
Let's change context. You go to a restaurant because it is advertising free meal opening night. You go, you eat, you have a good time. When you stand up to leave you are informed that in order to leave you have to pay the door tax.
A restaurant like that would be sued for false advertising. How is willfully gathering data about yourself only to be extorted money to access that data later on any different?
That would be a good analogy if OP told you that you had used $5 worth of resources and now have to pay, then calls the police on you when you close your tab.
It’s not about making a profit. Everyone wants to atleast cover their costs (including their own time). And personally I like money. I like having it and I like spending it. So I’m not going to bitch at anyone for seeking a profit.
My objection to the current wording is that it comes across as the server costs are though the roof. As a static site with a little thinking it can be heavily cached both online and on device, “New” apps could be generated offline and uploaded or auto generated using a server less (I still hate that term) back-end, knocking down that $7 per month to pennies per month. To the point where the domain name is the most expensive part of the site. Heck I can think of ways to use GitHub pages to run the site and get those server costs down to $0p/m.
But for me personally that can countered by simply remove the word server (Anyone who really knows the term “server” will have an idea of the cost). Removing the ref to their overheads removes that from you thought process when deciding on if dropping a few bucks is a good value. For me personally the message feels like they are struggling to cover their overheads when I know they will be small (To the point where personally I would run it for the shits and giggles of it). If they are even struggling to cover server costs the owners of the site won't be motivated to maintain the site.
Infact remove the word “costs”. When we walk into a supermarket we don’t think of the stores costs when we are purchasing things. By removing the wording I wouldn't be thinking about their server costs and thinking about it as more like dropping the creators a few bucks.
IMO being honest and a little bit cheeky can get you a long way. So personally I would word it like “Hey, want to see the number of times you have opened this app? Well for the low price of a cup of coffee instead of this Annoying message that is exactly what you see. Click here...”
