I’ve officially run out of ways to greet you on a summer Friday. Happy Friday? We made it? Anyway, I hope you can unplug early today. I’ve been doing a surprising amount of unplugging over summer weekends, thanks to the Brick—the first thing I’ve tried that has actually kept me off social media for days at a time. More on that below.
Then Instagzam’s new logo (not a typo) and an Old Thing from 1965 that still works today. Oh, and please send us your Old Things!
I’d bet on my dog doing the dishes before Apple and Samsung would ever ship their phones with a Brick, but gosh, I wish they would.
The Brick is a $59 piece of plastic. A magical yet simple piece of plastic.
The little NFC-powered box essentially bricks your phone—or, more specifically, whatever apps you tell it to brick. Here’s how it works: You choose which apps you want blocked in the Brick app, then tap your phone (iPhone or Android) against the little box. Those apps are locked until you physically tap the Brick again. Watch our new short video to see it in action.
I’ve been using it to block social media on weekends. And somehow this ridiculously simple system has worked better for me than anything else I’ve tried over the years. And I’ve tried it all: Apple’s Screen Time, grayscaling my screen, moving apps off my home screen, deleting apps, putting my phone in another room.
Here’s why this has worked, and why I think it’s worth a try if you have the same phone-addiction problem I do. (By the way, this is NOT an ad. I’ve just become slightly obsessed with this thing this summer.)
1) It adds friction.
The problem with Screen Time and Google’s Digital Wellbeing? They’re far too easy to override. You set a limit, then inevitably think, Ehhh, I’ve been good for the last hour, let me back into Instagram, and tap Ignore.
With the Brick, you have to physically find it and tap your phone to get back into those apps. Yes, there’s a software escape hatch, but it’s buried in settings and you only get five “Emergency Unbricks.” And to get more Unbricks you have to actually contact the company!
“One of the most effective ways to break habits is to add friction to make it more difficult,” behavioral scientist Asaf Mazar, who has published extensively on habits, told me. Given that software-only limits are easy to bypass and social-media apps are designed to eliminate all friction—see infinite scroll, autoplay and more—we don’t stand a chance.
In one not-yet-peer-reviewed study he worked on, researchers just logged people out of TikTok. They could log right back in whenever they wanted, but that tiny extra step cut TikTok use by about half an hour a day.
That’s basically what the Brick does. Yes, it’s a small obstacle to go get the Brick, especially if I happen to be in the house. But apparently my laziness is stronger than my desire to look at Instagram. (I usually just keep my Brick in a drawer in my closet.)
2) I want it to work.
I asked Mazar why willpower alone doesn’t work, especially since this summer I’ve really wanted to be better about putting down my phone and being present on weekends.
“Habits are so fast and so automatic and happen without you even intending to do them,” he said. “If you're just using willpower, it's going to be very, very tough because by the time you even have a chance to think, you're already in Instagram, you're already scrolling, you already saw a poodle on its hind legs solving math problems.”
Still, there’s something about the psychology of all this that’s working for me right now. The combination of friction and intention gives me just enough time to remember why I Bricked it in the first place: I spend all week looking at a screen with all the distractions of the internet and social media. I don’t need to spend my weekends there, too. My kids and my life aren’t inside a glowing rectangular slab.
Sometimes it takes a Brick to remind you to touch grass.
Instagzam. Instagram updated its wordmark yesterday for the first time in more than a decade. It’s less cursive than its predecessor, but also less legible—hence the typo in our title. It reads more like Instagzam or possibly Instaguam. Meta actually posted the other logos it could have gone with. Some of them even say Instagram. Intezzzesting. And yes, now other brands (ChatGPT and Coinbase) are jumping in on the fun.
Microsoft app merge. Speaking of redesigns, Copilot users will be seeing a slightly different logo soon. The Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot app will be merging into one cleverly named app…Microsoft Copilot. The move is part of Microsoft’s journey towards a “Super App,” streamlining personal and work accounts under one roof.
WhatsApp Scam Detection. An optional Scam Alert tool in WhatsApp uses AI to detect and flag suspicious messages. The feature operates entirely on your device, so Meta will not get access to any of your private information, or know you clicked that random link about discounted Ray-Bans that your great aunt sent you.
Name: Jerry Dawson
What's your old thing? Panasonic Radar Matic R-1000P
What year is your old thing from? 1965
Why do you love your old thing? This was my favorite radio as a teenager—10 transistors, three diodes and, best of all, auto tuning! You would wind up the spring on the back, turn it on, press the bar on the top and it would seek strong AM signals and automatically stop whenever it found one.
My childhood friend and I each saved up our money and took the bus from the suburbs to downtown Cleveland to Olson Electronics, where we each bought one. They were $30, which was a lot of money in 1965. Equivalent to $300 today! It runs on four AA batteries and still works perfectly to this day. Not sure why I had to have auto tuning, but I knew that I did.
CALLING ALL OLD THINGS!
Got an old gadget, software box, cable, remote, MP3 player or other beloved tech relic? Send it! Just reply to this email with your name, a photo and a few lines about what it is and why you loved it so much.
Fun fact: The Amazon wordmark has an arrow running from the “A” to the “Z.” The arrow does two things at once: illustrates that Amazon carries everything from A to Z and it makes the word into the shape of a little e-commerce smile. 😀
This newsletter was written and curated by Joanna Stern and Adele Lowitz.
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