You don't beat a short-form feed by blocking it. MindFlow takes the other path: past your usual limit, it gradually drains the feed of the videos that keep you hooked — so leaving stops taking willpower.
Short-form feeds learn what grips you and serve more of it, so a five-minute break keeps turning into an hour. That isn't weak will — it's the design working as intended.
The usual answer is a wall: app blockers, screen-time limits, "time's up" pop-ups. They all share the same flaw — they lean on self-control at the exact moment it's weakest, mid-scroll, when the next video is one flick away.
Hard limits also create resistance, and resistance gets bypassed. Everyone knows the ritual: hit the limit, feel the annoyance, tap "ignore for today". MindFlow doesn't build a wall. It quietly removes the reason to stay.
How long students stay on task before switching to a digital distraction.
Rosen et al., 2013Students who report being distracted by devices in most or every lesson.
OECD, 2024Singapore youths spending more than three hours a day on social media.
Nat. Youth Mental Health Study, 2024MindFlow adjusts one thing: how much pull your feed is allowed to have. The feed never goes away — its grip does. Over a session, that plays out in three phases.
A short break is not a problem, so MindFlow doesn't treat it like one. The feed plays exactly as it always does.
Once a break has become a session, the videos with the strongest hold on you quietly become rarer. The feed keeps playing — it just stops escalating.
What's left is watchable but not gripping. Nothing is holding on anymore, so you close the tab because you want to — not because something made you.
Tools that punish get uninstalled. So MindFlow never positions itself against you — only against the feed's grip.
Nothing is ever locked. Walls create resistance, and resistance always finds a way around.
No countdowns and no "time's up" screens. A deadline only makes the feed more tempting.
No streaks, no red charts, no weekly report to feel bad about. Shame is not a strategy.
No account and no sign-up. It's a tool you install, not a service you join.
Working out which videos have a hold on you means paying close attention to what you watch — so that attention stays inside your browser, on your machine, and nowhere else.
It's a study build: it uploads a record of the Shorts you watch so we can measure whether the pull actually weakens. Every field it sends is listed on the download page, above the button — read it before you decide.
MindFlow is a student research project, and whether the idea holds is an open question — that's what the beta is for. In some sessions it fades the feed, in others it only observes, and comparing the two tells us if the pull really weakens. Install it, scroll like normal, and you've contributed.