Launch HN: Clearspace (YC W23) – Cut back on screen time
During the pandemic, we found ourselves spending more and more of our lives on digital content. Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, even HN were always right there, and the impulse to open and consume became stronger than ever. We realized how much of our technology use was compulsive rather than intentional. Willpower alone was not enough to solve the problem. Most of these products have been designed to activate dopamine feedback loops and, to be blunt, keep users hooked [1].
Not wanting to be addicted, we started cobbling together "attention protection stacks": iPhone shortcuts, Chrome Extensions, custom /etc/ files, anything to create digital environments that aligned with our own goals rather than the engagement metrics of big tech. We had some surprising successes with that, so we decided to build a comprehensive and approachable solution. We began with our worst pain point: mindless scrolling on our phones.
How it works: you tell us what apps you want to reduce your usage of (edit: and websites! we just rolled out website support this week), and we do the following to train better habits:
(1) App Intercepts: we inject a mandatory 15 second breathing exercise before opening apps you’ve added to Clearspace. This helps to break the dopamine feedback loop that your brain has learned, where tapping an app icon yields an instant reward.
(2) Intentional Sessions: at the end of said breathing exercise, you tell us how long you want to use an app for. Then you enter and we'll pull you out after that amount of time.
(3) Cumulative Progress: each day you stay below your intended time limit adds to your streak of successes. Over time, protecting your streak frequently becomes more important than a "quick scroll" before bed (and if you get a 100 day under-budget streak, we'll send you a hat).
(4) Teammates: you can add “teammates” who will receive automatic texts if you exceed your budget on an app, remove it from Clearspace, or delete Clearspace entirely.
You may notice how this is fighting fire with fire: we use tech to limit your tech use, social features to curtail social media, and so on. The mechanisms built into the big apps have such a conditioning effect on the brain, they’re nearly impossible for most people to resist. We invoke similarly powerful mechanisms on your behalf, to help your life be less dominated by these things.
Some of this only recently became technically possible. The new ScreenTime API from Apple allows users to connect apps on their phone to third party apps (like us). We receive opaque "tokens" for each user app selection and we can perform actions on the tokens, which affects the apps without us knowing what the actual apps are. We can add and remove "shields" to a token, which presents an obstructing interface over an app or website. We can display a user's usage of a token over a time period and display that data to them.
Btw, after 3M "app intercepts" (a 15 second wait), we’ve found that people opt not to continue to the app they tried to open 54% of the time. We think that says something about how much of our social media use as a society is compulsive rather than intentional.
Here are some typical testimonials from users who have been recovering their time by using our app: https://twitter...
180 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 228 ms ] threadthe app is a little bit buggy, which sometimes makes it impossible to “pause” it. but one could argue that’s a feature not a bug!
overall impressed with Clearspace’s clever approach to this issue.
(All that said, glad you’re poking at this issue!)
every configuration of screen time limits we've tried has ended with us learning the quickest behavioral path to more scrolling (ie: quickly tapping "5 more minutes", entering passcode, etc).
1. we hit you with friction every time you enter an app you want to moderate your engagement with. with screen time limits, as long as you're under your budget, you'll get through no problem. in time this means you learn that early in the day is the best time to use social apps. we think this is a second order failure.
2. we let you stack your progress over time with your streak, which seems to be a far better behavioral motivator for staying in line with your goals.
3. we report usage for the apps you actually care about moderating. (I basically ignore my native screen time report, because "being up 25% this week" might mean I went on a long drive and was using maps to navigate, or that I doom-scrolled in bed until 3am.) we try to report data you actually care about (there's a ton we still need to do on this front, but we're getting better at it)
You mentioned to lukko above (lungy.app) that you might be interested in collabing, and then above you mention streaks... wanted to make sure you knew that with apps you can "call" other apps via shortcuts/urls and even get return data. At some point I'm hoping to work with a streaks app (rather than build it myself) etc etc.
I’m particularly interested in: - Is Clearspace cheaper over time?
- Does Clearspace work on websites as well as apps?
- Does Clearspace require manual Shortcuts setup like One Sec does?
- Are there features here that I don’t know I want?
1. no, we're more expensive (at least last I checked they were 3.99/mon we're 6.99/mon or 44.99/yr)
2. yes we just rolled out website support this week.
3. no manual shortcut setup. just one click to add an app you want to moderate. (for websites you can go to an app you've added and just type in which web domains should apply to that app.)
4. yes, probably! we can pull you out of app sessions, which I personally find to be a game-changer. friction on the way in is great, but I tend to get lost in suggested content once I'm actually in an app. I need to be ripped out after a few minutes, and we do that. also adding "teammates" to receive automated texts when I'm slipping up has been very helpful for me personally.
Is that true? When I click an app I'd like to moderate I see yellow text saying "Finish Setup!" Then I'm brought to the recorded video explaining how to do the shortcut setup.
One click set up would be sweet, but I'd be somewhat surprised to hear apple lets you do the whole shortcut setup for the user.
Would also be nice if the interrupt after your chosen amount of time were more intrusive, like apple's screentime notification is. And if you could make us do the breathing exercise again at that point.
Regardless, think the app is very cool. I've been using a flip phone for a while to break phone addiction, which has been great overall. But I still keep my iphone around for things like traveling and a night out where I may need to use uber, and this seems like a great middle ground.
Technology is supposed to serve society not rule or govern its habits. People should be taught to use technology not be a slave to it by using non-technology means.
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यदि किसी व्यक्ति विशेष को इस एप्प का प्रयोग करके एपों पर हो रही समय की बरबादी को रोकना पड रहा है तो उस व्यक्ति का स्वयं पर नियंत्रण ही नहीं है । क्योंकि आपका एप्प ऐसे लोग जो कि तकनीक के गुलाम हैं की कुविचारधारा को प्रचलित करता है तो यह एप्प असल में ऐसी मशीन निर्धर समाज को प्रचार करता है ।
तकनीक समाज की सेवा करने के लिये है उसपर नियंत्रण या उसकी आदतों पर राज करने के लिये नहीं । लोगों को तकनीक का प्रयोग करना सिखाया जाना चाहिए ना कि उसका गुलाम बनना वो भी बिना तकनीकी माध्यमों से ।
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I.e. if I add the Facebook app to clearspace, can I also add friction to using Facebook.com? This looks great by the way
we just added support for chrome and other browsers by allowing you to associate domains with apps you've added. so associating facebok.com with your facebook app applies that same friction regardless of browser now.
Not saying this "addiction" does not exist. I like some "drugs" and smoke and my phone is by far the worst and hardest to manage/quit.
It's not an addiction in any serious sense of the term and it's arguably misleading and disempowering people. Not every habit change needs to be framed as addiction battling.
https://www.iomcworld.org/open-access/neurotransmitter-dopam...
To Barrin's point, the jury is still out on formally qualifying this as "addiction" - and for most people the context of habit change is apt.
I think that digital devices/apps/etc. need left and right limits on addictive mechanisms like variable reinforcement schedules. Or maybe it is too late for that and the genie is out of the bottle. Maybe it is impossible to regulate, and big data and deep learning will allow apps to exploit deeper and deeper psychological mechanisms in our minds to highjack our attention until it is impossible to break out of it. The digital equivalent of fentanyl in a world were we evolved to handle opium poppy plants.
It seems like Google's Digital Wellbeing or the Apple equivalent could steal these features.
They may implement some of the same features but will always have to do some internal calculus on providing a smooth user experience and mitigating over-engagement. Our main goal is to equip people to reclaim control over their relationship with their devices - we think this is * probably * best solved by a startup
* The UI feels somewhat unpolished for asking me to purchase an annual plan on signup.
* I would prefer a free version that is fully featured for a short trial period that later reverts to a limited (one app) version. I have more than one problem app and it's hard to get a feel right now.
* Can I overlap schedules (i.e. open during lunch and any time during the weekend)?
* How do I set this up for something like YouTube? I have several modes of using this app: 1) mindlessly watching 5-10 minute videos looking for the next one, or 2) setting up a long playlist while I'm working out and treating it as a podcast app. I only want to prevent the former.
Planning to rewrite SuperFocus later this week to do the same on desktop as most of my time spent is on the desktop browser.
SuperFocus is not yet available for dboceidahklphhjpfbpnicodnbkoiokn."
thought it was a bug before I realised that must be the chrome extension id, but it's quite likely people will first open the extension on this tab as that's where you teach them to pin it
keep up the good work!
- we've been thinking about experimenting with this model. I personally find it annoying forgetting to unsubscribe to things I only wanted to trial but I understand your use case.
- yes you can do this - quick demo here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W7gU6ZhlA-fiLx0T2j5h9A14rdc...
- hmm, you could alter your youtube session options so that your only options are 45 minutes or longer? this wouldn't explicitly prevent you from shorter sessions, but might cause you to think "wait I don't have 45 minutes right now - forget it". would be curious to hear if that works for you.
(I have an iPad Pro as you still need something that can run apps, but there's no risk of me lugging that thing around)
One tamer one is the time I stopped to help a woman whose car broke down on the side of Route 5 near Camp Pendleton. Her phone had died and she was stuck there waiting for help. I didn't have a phone, but knew there was a Marine Base nearby so drove there to get help. Unfortunately it was dark and I went down the wrong road and suddenly see a Marine running after my car with an M-16. Luckily he didn't shoot, laughed at my Hawaii Driver's License, and directed me to a nearby gas station, where we were able to phone for help.
Not having a phone makes every day an adventure! :)
You definitely do need a phone # for accounts and auths.
Without sophistication I am never going to use a piece of software that just blocks apps.
I hope your software is able to help people who have the problem but don't use the website version of things.
We built a chrome extension that is available for premium users to that eliminates the distracting social feeds on sites, but keeps the useful parts of them. So you can still search and reply to messages on Linkedin, for example, you just won't see the feed. Our main focus is the iPhone app right now, so we haven't been loud about it as a part of our core offering but you may find it useful. Give it a shot here and see if it's helpful. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearspace/geebjpi...
1. render that single tweet on the shield so you don't even have to enter the app to see it
or
2. let you passively stack up all the links you get sent socially, like a reading list, so you can work through them all at once.
will keep you posted on which way we go but definitely going to address this because it's a pain-point of mine as well.
> “one-tweet”
I want to “peek” at this tweet but I do not want to use Twitter.
I like the UI, just wondering if the 'Breathe' prompt will get old quite quickly. I created an app (https://www.lungy.app) that tries to make each breathing session feel very different, hopefully making it feel fresh each time - I wonder if more variation would work in this case too.
Would you be interested in collabing?
https://www.getclearspace.com/#newsletter
Onesec uses the shortcut/automation on iOS to intercept app open and not the screen time api you mentioned. So it does take a little time for the initial setup, that’s the only friction I remember from a long time.
Just putting it out there.
I do like the additional social feature here. Would give it a try.
1. https://one-sec.app/
- we can pull you out of an app at the end of the time you intended to use it for
- we support restricting websites
- we let you accumulate your progress over time via a streak, which is quite motivating (at least for me personally)
The Apple signup also cuts of at the bottom.
You mention phone use in the description of the app, but also address iPad users if possible.
I am big fan of allowing people to see what would be happen by choosing one over the other, usually with a (?) symbol.
So I am not going to use it right now. Hope you can work with this feedback.
It's also very rigorous about switching to the app from other apps, to the point where even if you quickly switch out it will make you wait again when switching back. The ability to bypass this within a 10 minute window (or whatever) is what made me pay for it. Not sure if yours does the same thing, but thought I'd suggest that too. I'll give yours a try. Thanks for making my phone better!
As such, we think a recurring subscription is the best way to align our interests with our users and make sure we're building the right thing over time. When customers are consistently paying, if we don't consistently deliver the value they're paying for, they leave. It means we're in a tighter feedback loop with users about what's working and what isn't.
Basically we think it's mission-critical that the technology protecting your attention to be as well built as the tech trying to exploit it, and our best guess at the moment is recurring subscription is the best way to accomplish that.
- social accountability via teammates
- data reporting and streaks - we think displaying habit-change progress should have a cumulative and compounding effect. streaks are proving particularly effective for our users in this regard
- website support for non-safari browsers
- more complex scheduling - Screenzen will let you specify 1-3pm on MWF, for example, but not 1-3pm and 9-11pm MWF)
- much, much more to come. we're building for the cross platform future
every configuration of screen time limits we've tried has ended with us learning the quickest behavioral path to more scrolling (ie: quickly tapping "5 more minutes", entering passcode, etc).