Do app blockers work? What they fix, and what they miss

What blockers do well

A blocker adds friction. The site you open without thinking is suddenly not there, and that small wall is often enough to break the loop.

The best ones are hard to undo. Freedom blocks apps and websites and syncs across Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android and Chrome, so one session covers all your devices. Cold Turkey Blocker, on Windows and Mac, is built so that once you lock a block, it's almost impossible to stop early.

If you know exactly which two or three sites eat your afternoon, a blocker is a smart tool. We compare the main ones in the best app blockers.

What the research says

The evidence is real, but mixed. A 2023 review in the Journal of Medical Internet Research looked at 13 apps designed to cut phone use, across 19 studies. Their effects "varied from weak to strong." Grayscale mode, app time limits and mixed approaches were among the things that helped.

The authors concluded that apps like these have potential, and that more research is needed. In plain words: they can help, but they're not a sure thing.

The part a blocker can’t reach

A blocker works on where you go. It can't touch why you wanted to leave.

When London School of Economics researchers filmed everyday phone use, 89% of pickups were started by the person, not by a notification. Something inside moved first. A locked app doesn't make that feeling go away, so the urge looks for another exit.

You check email. You make a coffee you don't want. You spend four minutes finding a way around the block.

And at work there's a bigger catch. You can't block the things that distract you most, because they're your job. Email, Slack, Teams and the browser all have to stay open.

Use both, in the right order

Nir Eyal argues that distraction usually starts with an internal trigger: a feeling you want to escape. In his four steps to becoming "indistractable", locks and precommitments come last. He calls them "the last line of defense," to use after you've dealt with the internal triggers. Our Indistractable summary walks through all four steps.

That order matters. A blocker asks where can't I go? Something for the urge asks why did I want to leave? One holds the door shut. The other deals with the reason you walked to it. A blocker on its own is a wall with an annoyed person pacing behind it. After the first step, it's a helpful backstop.

Test it tomorrow

Keep your blocker on for your worst two or three sites tomorrow. Each time you hit the block screen, notice what you do next. If you go straight back to work, the blocker is enough for you. If you drift to email, snacks or another tab, the urge is the real problem.

For the urge, stop and name what you're feeling in one word. Then spend two minutes on what that feeling needs: a long breath out for anxious, a ten-minute challenge for bored, everything on paper for overwhelmed. Then go back. Each feeling is explained in why we doomscroll.

CatchScroll isn't a blocker, and it's happy to sit next to one. It's built for that second half: you tap the feeling, it talks you through a two-minute reset made for it, then sends you back to your focus timer.

So tomorrow, when the block screen appears: where do you go next?