A developer gives up on willpower and engineers friction instead
The post opens with the moment that changed the author's approach: he once overrode his own website blocker for 444 minutes, not to check anything important, just to keep scrolling. That failure convinced him that willpower cracks under repeated use, so instead of relying on self-discipline he set out to make the sites he could not fully quit boring rather than trying to quit them.
His problem sites are YouTube, Reddit and LinkedIn, all of which he calls genuinely useful (professional videos, subreddits like r/LocalLLaMA and r/Python, and community contacts), so simply avoiding them was never an option. His first layer was friction through inconvenience: he deleted the YouTube, Reddit and LinkedIn native apps and forced himself into the worse mobile browser experience, and switched to Olauncher, a distraction-free Android launcher he has used for more than a year.
That was not enough, so he added LeechBlock NG, a Firefox and Chromium extension that blocks chosen sites outright, with an Override option that grants 5 minutes of access when he genuinely needs it. He ran it on both computer and phone, blocking YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and Twitter/X, but the Override button itself became the leak: it is what let the 444-minute session happen in the first place, since any blocker can simply be switched off.
The layer he credits most is turning his phone's display to grayscale, something he has kept for more than two years. His reasoning: a blocker restricts access, and access can always be overridden, while grayscale removes the appeal itself, and there is no override button for content that no longer looks fun. He pairs this with clicking every "Not interested" option a platform offers, on the grounds that the click costs nothing and steadily makes the feed duller, whereas engaging with unwanted content teaches the algorithm to serve more of it.
When he noticed the same doomscrolling habit had simply moved to his computer, he wanted grayscale there too, but ruled it out because he needs color for syntax highlighting at work. An existing open-source browser extension came close but not all the way, so he filed an issue against it and, rather than wait, wrote his own Tampermonkey userscript. The script, matched to linkedin.com, reddit.com, x.com, twitter.com and youtube.com, forces grayscale across the page, applies a 1px blur to images, video and iframes (removed on hover), and strips rounded corners and shadows for a flatter, less inviting interface.
He is explicit that none of this eliminates the underlying pull: every layer can still be bypassed if he really wants to bypass it, and the goal was never to make access impossible, only to make the default path a little more annoying. He frames the whole approach as a personal shift in cause: he now treats the doomscrolling as an addiction rather than a discipline problem, and aims to raise its cost through friction instead of trying to out-willpower it.
Key facts
- The author once overrode his own website blocker for 444 minutes just to keep scrolling, the incident that convinced him willpower cannot be relied on.
- His stack layers multiple frictions: no native apps for YouTube, Reddit or LinkedIn, the Olauncher minimal launcher (used over a year), and LeechBlock NG blocking those sites with a 5-minute Override option.
- He has kept his phone's display in grayscale for more than two years, arguing that a blocker only restricts access while grayscale kills the content's appeal directly.
- For sites he still visits in the browser, he wrote his own Tampermonkey userscript that forces grayscale, applies a 1px blur to media, and strips rounded corners and shadows on LinkedIn, Reddit, X/Twitter and YouTube.
- He states plainly that every layer can be bypassed and that nothing here eliminated the underlying addiction, only made acting on it more expensive.
Why it matters
The piece reframes a common failure mode, losing a fight with self-discipline against addictive feeds, as a design problem rather than a willpower problem. Its central claim is concrete and falsifiable within the author's own account: a blocker only restricts access and access can always be overridden, while removing visual appeal (grayscale) leaves nothing to override. That distinction, between restricting access and killing appeal, is the one idea in the post that goes beyond just listing tools.
Who it affects
The setup is aimed at people who cannot simply quit certain platforms because they are genuinely useful to them professionally or personally, in the author's case YouTube for professional and hobby video, Reddit communities like r/LocalLLaMA and r/Python, and LinkedIn for running a community. It is written for people who have already tried and failed at pure discipline-based approaches, not for anyone looking to block a site outright.
How to use it
The described stack, in the order the author added it, is: delete native apps for anything resembling social media and use the browser instead; switch to a minimal launcher such as Olauncher; install LeechBlock NG (Firefox and Chromium, including Firefox for Android) and set a short Override window, 5 minutes in his config, for genuine need; put the phone display in grayscale; click every "Not interested" control a feed offers; and, for the computer, run a Tampermonkey userscript matched to linkedin.com, reddit.com, x.com, twitter.com and youtube.com that forces grayscale, adds a 1px blur to images, video and iframes, and removes rounded corners and shadows.
How solid is it
This is a first-person account, not a study: there is no measurement of before-and-after usage, no comparison group, and the only quantified outcome in the whole piece is the single 444-minute anecdote that started the effort. The reasoning for why grayscale works better than blocking is the author's own inference, not something he tested against an alternative or measured. It reads as a considered personal system, not evidence that the approach generalizes.
Risks and caveats
The author is upfront that every layer he describes can still be bypassed if he wants to bypass it, and says the goal was never to make access impossible, only to make the default path slightly more annoying. He also states directly that nothing in the setup killed the underlying addiction, each layer only made acting on it a bit more expensive. The approach requires ongoing manual maintenance, such as writing and updating a personal userscript, and its reported effectiveness rests entirely on one person's own account of his own habits.
“Nothing here killed my addiction. Each layer just made it a little more expensive. Willpower cracks. Friction holds.”
— the author, closing the post