In the quiet of a late-night room, the only light comes from a flickering glow, casting shadows across familiar walls. It’s a scene played out in countless spaces, where the hours melt away unnoticed, and the world outside seems to pause. This luminescent beacon, a portal to endless narratives and snippets of life, holds a grip that’s hard to break. There, amidst the silence, my nightly ritual unfolds — a dance of thumbs and fleeting images. As the night deepens, so does the journey into this digital world, where every turn seems to reveal more yet satisfy less. And in this nightly routine, the realization dawns that perhaps, just perhaps, it’s finally time to find the way out.
Like many college students, I find myself succumbing to an endless doom scroll, where every swipe gives me another shot of dopamine, pulling me into a deeper hole of digital despair. Minute-long videos turn into hours, distracting me from work, stealing my sleep, and leaving me feeling unproductive and overwhelmed. It was up until I was doing my nightly doom scroll that I came across an ad, perfectly placed by the Instagram Reels algorithm, that seemed to personally call me out. How much of yourself do you feed to the beast against your will? The ad questioned me. “If you’re watching this it’s because your most primal needs and instincts are being weaponized to get you to give up all your precious minutes and hours down to the last second…Now, if you’re watching this get the f**k off of Instagram”. As I layed there, illuminated by nothing but the glow of my phone, I finally came to a realization – I needed to get the f**k off of Instagram. The ad in question was for the app Opal, a productivity app designed to block off certain apps for certain periods of the day, aimed at breaking the cycle of doom scrolling.
In an era where everything seems to depend on social media, it can feel like you can never skip the screens. Although it might seem like a trivial habit, increased screen time has been shown to be associated with some quite detrimental effects. In an analysis of nearly 4,000 adolescents in Canada, researchers found a link between the amount of social media use and the intensity of depressive symptoms, evident in both individual and comparative analyses. Additionally, in a self reported poll by the Pew Research Center, 54% of U.S. teens reported they spend too much time on their cellphones.Â
Spurred by my late-night epiphany, I embarked on a mission to break the cycle of my digital entrapment. The ad for Opal was a wake-up call, challenging me to confront my habits head-on. But why stop at one solution? In addition to Opal, I decided to test out one other productivity app, Flora, and see which one could actually break my guilty pleasure.Â
Opal is a productivity app specifically aimed at getting users off of short-form content apps, like TikTok and Instagram Reels. With the free version of the application, you have the ability to block up to three apps for short durations, as well as a specified work time. On the other hand, Flora is a free app aimed at getting you off your phone completely, growing virtual trees when you meet your specific focus duration. You are able to block an unlimited amount of apps, and if you do access any apps on your banned list, your tree will die (very heartbreaking when it happens). Over two days, I tested both apps to see which one could finally squash my incessant habit. Using Opal first, I set my work duration as 9am to 11pm. I choose to ban Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. The app gave me some very insightful statistics into my screen time habits, from formulating a “focus score” to calculating the amount of times that I had picked up my phone that day (mine was around 400 times!). It categorized each app by duration used, and by “distracting”, “productive”, or “neutral”. There were many times throughout the day that I picked up my phone attempting to distract myself by looking at a TikTok someone sent me or scrolling through Instagram Reels, but Opal gave me a quick and witty reminder that now was not the time to be going on these apps (featured below!). Along with the reminder, it showed me just how many times I had tried to access the apps, which was absolutely humbling.Â
One factor I was concerned about was how easy it would be to simply turn off the restrictions, but Opal does a good job of making this harder than simply clicking a button. If you want to leave your session, you must enter the Opal app and wait 5 seconds before making your decision, giving you some time to think about your actions. You can also “snooze” your focus session, giving you a break, but the more you snooze, the shorter your breaks become.  Rather than attempting to remove the block, I found myself begrudgingly heading back to whatever task I was trying to avoid when I was greeted with a playful reminder of my attempt to break my focus.Â
Overall, my experience with Opal suggests it’s a quick-fix solution for mitigating my distracting tendencies. However, the app’s most advantageous features remain inaccessible without a subscription. With the free version of the app, you are unable to view your screen time and productivity history, becoming a mere snapshot lacking comprehensive historical data. You can also only block up to three apps, and have one productivity session per day with the free version. While the free tier of Opal gives you a digestible and eye-opening glimpse into your personal habits, providing you with the bare-minimum you need to get through your To-Do list distraction-free, it falls short of delivering the full suite of tools that lie behind its paywall.
The Opal Home Screen
On day two, I explored Flora, an app that incentivizes concentration by allowing you to grow a virtual foliage provided that you complete your focus duration. Flora grants the user the liberty to engage in focus sessions extending up to three hours, where you can pre-plan intermittent 3 to 30 minute breaks. Notably, the app has a built-in to-do list and daily, weekly, and monthly stats, all available for free. During instances of heightened distractibility—such as while tackling academic assignments—I initiated a Flora session.The platform affords the freedom to restrict any number of apps, a feature included at no cost. I decided to block Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and a few miscellaneous apps I found myself wandering onto. Although less witty than Opal, Flora gave me a reminder to stay focused whenever I found myself on an app that I had restricted.Â
Message displayed by Flora when you access a restricted appÂ
As a whole, the app provided a great way to block out shorter amounts of times when I knew I could not be distracted, all while growing an adorable little garden.
My Flora garden!Â
Upon evaluating both applications, I found Opal and Flora to offer promising solutions to fixing a problem that plagues many. The free version of Opal is more than adequate if you aim to go long periods of time without accessing certain apps, while also giving you eye opening statistics about your daily phone habits. However, its limitation lies in the unavailability of historical data without a premium upgrade. Flora, on the other hand, excels in facilitating brief, focused intervals in a fun way, and gave me the ability to block as many apps as I wanted – all free of charge. Depending on your needs and goals in productivity, both can be especially helpful in breaking free of your phone habit. Each app caters to distinct productivity objectives: Opal for sustained disconnection from particular apps accompanied by insightful analytics, and Flora for managing occasional distractions with a playful approach. If your goal is to be completely off of a few distracting apps for a prolonged period of time, Opal is a great tool to turn to. However, if you find yourself simply getting distracted by a multitude of apps when you should be running a quick errand or during a short study session, Flora is a fun, easy way to keep yourself in check.Â
Overcoming any habit requires time and discipline, and this certainly extends to one’s smartphone usage. Using Opal and Flora, I took significant steps toward breaking free from the trap of social media, showing that with the right tools and a strong resolve, it’s possible to regain control over your screen time. Although I am nowhere near being completely perfect in my productivity habits, both apps are a step in the right direction. Each application has their strengths, tailored to different needs: Opal for comprehensive blocking and insights, Flora for focused, short-term goals with a touch of fun. The real change comes from the long-term discipline to break free of an addictive habit. It’s about making a conscious lifelong decision to put our well-being above our screen habits. Ultimately, our relationship with technology is here to stay, and mending this relationship isn’t just about quitting doom scrolling; it’s about mindful engagement with our digital lives, ensuring technology serves us, not the other way around.