Show HN: I stopped doomscrolling (built an IOS app for it) | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I stopped doomscrolling (built an IOS app for it)

apps.apple.com

2 pointsStrawhatoofy4 comments

I had this bad habit of picking up my phone without thinking. Mornings, breaks, late at night. Open Insta or Twitter “for a min” and boom, 30–40 mins gone. Not even fun scrolling. Just autopilot.

Tried app blockers. Tried turning off notifications. Didnt last. Blocking just made me annoyed, and I’d end up disabling it.

So I built Mindsnack.

Instead of blocking apps, it lets you binge small concepts around life skills. If something actually interests you, you can go deeper and take short lessons. The idea is to replace empty scrolling with something that at least feels intentional.

Tech stack is pretty simple:

- React Native - Node backend - Postgres - A backend agent that generates short courses

Didnt build this to be more productive. Built it because I was tired of losing time without choosing it.

I still scroll sometimes. I’m planning to make it more interactive and engaging over time.

Curious to hear from others:

- have you used any app to stop doomscrolling? - what worked or didnt? - would replacing the habit work better than blocking?

Happy to hear honest thoughts, even if this sounds dumb

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I generally delete apps if they are low value and I spend too much time on them. I’m wary of replacing one type of idle screen usage with another. For another app, like yours, to replace a doom scrolling app it would have to be engaging, and if it’s that engaging, I fear I’d have the same problem

My biggest issue currently is that the browser still allows me to go to various things and it isn’t something I can or would delete outright.

While it’s not for me, congrats on the launch.

Thanks! Im trying to replace brain rot videos with learning bingable cards.

I don't use an Apple device so I can't see what's in the course content, but how do you make sure it's high quality and not just average AI generated crap? Watching those would be the same as doom scrolling for me.

To be clear, I think AI can generate reasonably high quality content if used correctly and edited by humans who are expert in relevant area. But things like copyright & quality need to be taken seriously.

That’s a fair concern and I agree. If it turns into AI slop, it’s just doomscrolling again.

It’s not video based. Think of it more like scrollable text cards. Short, structured, and meant to be interactive rather than something you just consume endlessly. The content isn’t raw model output either, it’s constrained by templates and reviewed.

Copyright is something I'll look into after this grows.

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