Instagram and TikTok: This is how the "Brick" device works against cell phone addiction

Most of us spend almost 21 hours per week on social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube or Tiktok*. If you collect the hours together, it is 46 days per year (without sleep and breaks). The personalized algorithm makes it difficult to put the cell phone away because it shows more and more of what we certainly like.

In contrast, there is now a small gray device. Bundesliga club RB Leipzig already uses it in the players’ cabinso that you can concentrate more on the team and the shared exchange. But how exactly does it work?

Magnetic device

“Brick” is the name of the small square building block. With the app of the same name (previously only available for iOS), the magnetic device can be programmed. If you open “Brick” on the iPhone, you choose which Apps should be activated or deactivated. That is quickly done: just hold your cell phone on the gray magnets, as with a cell phone payment.

Example: I choose the Instagram and Tikok app. Then I stop my cell phone at “Brick” and can then no longer access the two apps (also pushed push news) – until I keep the smartphone again. Other cell phone applications can continue to be easily accessed.

Be not constantly distracted

“We just have too much on iPhone hung. Of course, we always wanted to have our cell phones with us without being constantly distracted. That’s why we invented Brick, ”explain the two 23-year-old founders TJ Driver and Zach Nasgowitz on Instagram.

Disadvantage: a snapper is not exactly the device. 57.95 euros plus 21.06 euros shipping costs from the USA are steep. Especially when you consider that it is just a gray plastic box with a simple radio chip. After all, a “brick” works for any number of cell phones.

Advantage: In contrast to other measures, such as the restriction of the screen time or the manual locking of certain apps, the technology cannot be avoided so easily-in any case you have to go to the brick sensor and keep your cell phone.

*Source: Social Media Atlas 2023 of the communication agency per. 3500 internet users from the age of 16 were interviewed about age, gender and federal state.