StopScroll helped me limit my screen time and be more productive

Let’s be honest, most of us spend a majority of our free time on social media platforms, whether we realise it or not. I am no different. With work, it was easier for me to avoid investing too much of my time on Instagram on weekdays. However, weekends were a whole different story! I am a sucker for brainrot content and would spend hours scrolling through reels.

That’s not how I wanted to spend most of my weekends though. I wanted to paint, go on walks, gossip with my mom about my family. But, my lack of self-control just led to mindless scrolling.

When I came across an app that told me I can control that which I had no control on, I was intrigued. And so, began my time with StopScroll. Here’s what it is, how to use it and what I thought of it:

What is the StopScroll app?

StopScroll is an app that aims to help users reduce screen times and improve their productivity. It is made to use blockers and cut short your social media usage or as the GenZ call it, “doomscrolling”.

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The app blocks short form video content on several social media apps and even stops you from overusing Snapchat. It is perfect for anyone looking to maintain a healthy balance between their digital lives and offline lives.

How to use the StopScroll app

Once you have installed the app, give it all the required accessibility permissions. These permissions let the app block Reels and Shorts on various platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, even TikTok and Snapchat.

You just tweak the settings to suit your preferences, and the app will restrict your access to some of the app’s content. You can also track your screen time spent on these platforms to understand patterns and make the required changes in your social media habits.

What did I think of the StopScroll app?

The app has an easy-to-navigate interface. The homepage has a timer to count down your set amount of scrolling time. It has three tabs beneath it – Block All, Day Limit, and Break. I liked how it gave me access to all the features right in one place.

The Block All feature restricts your access to all short form video content on either YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat spotlight.

The Day Limit tab has a timer that lets me set a specific time limit for the day. It restricted my activity on all platforms after that set time was over. The timer could be set from a minute to two hours. This was super convenient for me as I could change the time limit depending on how much free time I had on a particular day. I won’t even pretend that I didn’t set the timer for 2 hours, 30 minutes on Sundays.

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The Break feature, however, is only available for premium subscribers. Right beneath these three tabs, is a short analysis to give us an insight into how many minutes we’ve spent on scrolling reels or shorts on the aforementioned apps.

I wanted a strict restriction on my daily screen time activity, so I opted to go with the ‘Hard Block’ blocking method that closes the reels as soon as you open them. However, you can go to the settings and change it to ‘Show Warning’ if you just want an alert.

The free version of the app grants these basic blocking and tracking features to get our unlimited scrolling under control while tracking the activity to help us set an aim for ourselves on how much we want to limit our screen time.

Unfortunately, I had to endure an ad every time I opened the app or switched tabs. That was an encouragement in itself to not tweak the setting too many times to be lenient.

How to get the StopScroll app

StopScroll is available for Android smartphones and tablets, and similar applications are also available on the App Store for iPhones.

You can opt for the Premium upgrade of Rs 100 every month or Rs 400 per year to get access to the Break feature, some advanced customisation and analysis, and have an ad-free experience.