Bricked

How my experiment with getting off social media is working—and failing

Early this year, I wrote of my new year’s resolution: to get off my phone, or more specifically, to stop scrolling social media. I decided to buy a Brick, a small square grey device that you touch to your phone to disable whatever apps and capabilities you want to be suspended. It makes a satisfying little vibration which is called haptic feedback. Then you are “bricked.” You walk away with your phone—and perhaps your dignity—in tact and remain as disconnected as you’ve chosen to be until you “unbrick” by repeating the process.

Yes, I could have eschewed this $59 purchase and tried to exercise more will power in this battle. But I suspect will power is just what we call it when we don’t scaffold ourselves in our environment adequately and hence make doing what we need to do unnecessarily painful. I experience enough pain in working on misogyny in the age of Trump, thank you.

Anyway. The experiment has gone both much better and more worse than I could have anticipated. If you’re wondering whether you should buy a Brick too, my answer is an unqualified “maybe.”