Your Website Blocker is Protecting the Wrong Hours

Image by Couleur from Pixabay

Even if you don’t use a website blocker (or app blocker), imagining what you’d use it for and when can show you what you’re prioritizing. Reflecting on whether that aligns with your values and what you care about (or not) can be an impactful exercise.

What is a website blocker? What is an app blocker?

Website and app blockers basically have the same goal: to prevent you from opening specific websites or applications during specific times.

Hence the term “blockers.” To block means to: obstruct an opponent’s play; interrupt normal function.

The main difference between them is that website blockers tend to refer to blocking websites on the computer and app blockers block the app form of those website on your phone or tablet.

For simplicities sake, I’ll refer to these terms interchangeably for the rest of the article or simply call them “blockers.”

Some computers and phones have blockers built into the settings like Screen Time for iPhone and Digital Wellbeing for Android. But there are also third party options like Cold Turkey or StayFocusd.

They allow you to set boundaries by locking you out of “time-waster sites” during specific hours of your choice or limiting your daily time allotted to them.

For example, you might block Facebook during work hours except during your lunch break. Or only allow yourself 15 minutes on Instagram per day.

Don’t confuse these with ad blockers. An ad blocker hides the ads on YouTube; while a blocker prevents you from opening YouTube at all. They both block things, but the things they block are different.

What websites do you block?

Web and app blockers first became popular as a productivity aid. As social media sites and phones themselves have become increasingly addictive, website blockers emerged as a solution to inefficiency and distraction at work by removing those temptations.

Not surprisingly, the top five most blocked websites are YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. The only sites in the top ten that weren’t social media were a streaming site and an explicit one.

These apps dominate our leisure time, so blocking them at work makes sense. When they compete with work tasks, they create wasted time and decision fatigue, which diminishes our ability to think deeply and focus.

But what if we’re missing valuable opportunities for blockers to make our lives better? It got me thinking…

Whose time is your website blocker protecting?

Given their origins as productivity tools, we can assume that blockers are most often used during work hours. That means we’re protecting our boss’s time not ours.

While being productive at work benefits us, it raises an interesting question: why aren’t we equally protective of our personal time?

Have you ever considered blocking social media during blocks of free time? Or thought about blocking emails on the weekend?

You might be skeptical of blocking social media during your free time and think, “isn’t that what free time is for?” I get that, and yet, the research against social media is compelling.

One study found that limiting Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to just 30 minutes per day for one week led to significant reductions in loneliness and depression among participants. And those benefits lasted even after the study ended.

Research by Dr. Adrian Ward found that simply having your smartphone visible nearby (even when it’s turned off) reduces cognitive performance by about 10%. Your brain uses that much energy to resist checking it.

And as much as we might wish it to be otherwise, social media is the opposite of relaxing. It often increases stress and leave us emotionally drained. Not to mention it’s well-known disruptive effects on sleep.

Who could you become?

Blockers excel at preventing doomscrolling and binge-watching at work. But we could be using them more for our own benefit, not just for our employer’s goals.

The average American spends 2 hours and 24 minutes of their free time on screens, which adds up to nearly 17 hours per week, 3 full days per month, or more than 36 days per year. In contrast, we only spend an average of 30 minutes outside.

How much would your life change if you rerouted just one of those hours to achieving one of your heartfelt desires?

In one hour per day for a year, you could become fluent in another language, write a novel, train for a marathon, nurture your relationships, establish a meditation practice, or start a business.

Even simply relearning how to relax and get bored without berating yourself can be a radical (and restorative) way to spend your time.

One of the most common regrets of the dying is: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Having social media accounts, constantly being “available” on email, and impulse buying on Amazon are cultural expectations now. We’ve been coerced and programmed to do those things.

It’s not your fault that it’s so hard to resist. They made it this way, but that doesn’t mean things have to stay this way. It takes courage to change the script, but it could be the difference between a numb life vs a life filled with purpose and meaning.

Protect your time

Blockers can be valuable tools to overcome temptation without relying on willpower, but they do come with limitations (like how easy they are to override).

My spouse swears by blockers to keep him focused at work and off his phone before bed, but I personally don’t use them. My preferred strategy was to break the addictive habits and delete social media accounts, but that method isn’t for everyone.

Thinking about how you do (or would) use blockers and why is an easy way to look at what you’re valuing with your actions and intentions. Then you can reflect: do my priorities match my deepest values?

If the answer is no, then it’s worth investigating: whose values are these? They’re likely carryovers from your family, societal, or workplace culture.

If I could delete one idea from your mind it would be this: “I hate [doomscrolling, constantly checking email, mindless Amazon browsing], but this is just the way things are.”

We are cocreating our collective experience. We may not be able to control larger systems, but we get to decide what we pay attention to and what we spend our time doing each day. And that impacts and influences the people around us.

I’d love to see a world full relaxed, fulfilled, and connected people who use technology without letting it use them. I believe that world exists because I’m creating that in my own home.