For something, not against something: why alternatives work where bans fail
About 70 percent of people abandon self-control and digital health apps within the first 100 days (JMIR 2024). The reason is rarely laziness: fighting against something is exhausting, living for something carries you. That is exactly what ctrl is built on.
The problem with being against
If all you want is to scroll less, you are left with a hole the moment the apps close. The feed was an answer to something: boredom, loneliness, the gaps between two tasks. If the hole stays empty, the feed wins back within days. That explains the high abandonment rates of pure blocker apps.
What carries instead
Habits form over about 66 days on average (Lally 2009), and they form around actions, not around bans. That is why ctrl does not only count what you do not do: Momentum counts the days you showed up for your real life. Connect shows you friends who are in ctrl right now. A sacrifice becomes a shared project.
And then: out
The next step goes beyond the app. We are building a real offline community: shared events and running clubs are in the making, places where the reclaimed time can go. Tools against screen time exist in plenty. We are building the direction it goes afterwards.
What already works today is on the Connect page, and the key is here.