How to block TikTok and Instagram on your phone for good

TikTok and Instagram are the two apps people most often describe as something that happens to them. If you want them gone from your day, do it as a configuration change rather than a promise.

> The setup, in order

• ▪Decide the scope: both apps, plus their websites, plus any browser you have installed. Half a block is no block.
• ▪Pick a duration you will not immediately regret. Seven days is the usual starting point.
• ▪Name a key holder before you start, and tell them what you are doing.
• ▪Delete both icons from your home screen even while the lock runs. The icon is an advertisement you are paying for.
• ▪Charge the phone in another room overnight so the first and last hour of the day are clean.

> The mistakes that undo it

The classic one is leaving a side door open: the mobile web version, a second browser, the embedded browser in another app, or a tablet. Block the category, not the icon. The second mistake is choosing a duration so long that you never begin. A finished seven-day lock beats an imagined thirty-day one.

You are not trying to win an argument with the feed. You are trying to not be standing in front of it.

> What the first week looks like

Expect forty to ninety unconscious reaches on day one, clever bargaining arguments on day two, and a flat, slightly boring calm by day three. That boredom is the withdrawal symptom, and it is the last thing standing between you and a few extra hours a day.

Have somewhere for the time to go before it appears. Reclaimed hours with no plan tend to reinstall the app themselves.