Additional feature to 'Usage Breaker'

I was reading this blog post (https://journal.jennfrank.net/under-pressure ; Specifically the section about middle of the post right, below the EDC picture of gameboys and stuff) which mentioned an idea that "app icons should get larger the more they're used". My idea is the opposite actually: if someone has usage breaker turned on, the app should be harder and harder to access on your phone. I'll use TikTok as an example.

It starts off as an app on the users favorites list. After the user spends a certain amount of time on the app or a certain number of launches on the app it's hidden from the favorites list and they have to open it from the app list.

Phase 2 is hiding it from the apps list if they keep opening / using the app, in that case they have to manually search for the app "TikTok" in order to open it.

Finally, it's no longer shown in search results and they have to wait for some defined amount of time before they can open the app again.

The general idea is to put more barriers into the process of opening the app. I know there are edge cases for handling this and what not (Recent Apps Page, for example. You'd have to force close the app from the launcher and kill it in the background too, which I'm not sure is possible) and the idea isn't totally fleshed out here, but I had a moment and needed to at least get the idea down on paper so I could send it to you all.

I am aware that this feature requires, like, 3 sub features to be developed beforehand, like hiding apps from search, dynamically hiding apps in app list, dynamically adding and removing apps from favorites based on targeting status in ‘Usage Breaker’, etc. So, you know, I’m not holding out hope here. Thought it could be an interesting and helpful addition.

Category
Digital Wellbeing

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Upvoters
Status

In Review

Board
💡

Feature Request

Date

28 days ago

Author

~P

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