The problem
Most people already want out.
of TikTok users say they'd be better off if the platform didn't exist. They'd even pay to have everyone quit, not just themselves.
Bursztyn et al. · American Economic Review, 2025
of US teens say they spend too much time on social media. The share is climbing.
Pew Research Center, 2025 · n = 1,391 US teens
Why it's so hard to stop
The feed isn't even fun.
You can lose an hour to something you didn't enjoy and wouldn't choose again. There are good explanations for that, and none of them are about being weak-willed.
Dopamine drives wanting, not liking. The system that keeps you reaching is not the one that enjoys what you find, which is why scrolling can feel compulsive and joyless at once.
Berridge & Robinson · American Psychologist, 2016
Negative words in a headline measurably raise the odds you click. Feeds are tuned by clicks, so the grim stuff rises on its own. Nobody has to be plotting for the result to be a river of bad news.
Robertson et al. · Nature Human Behaviour, 2023
Why the last app you tried stopped working
Blockers lose slowly.
Not because people are weak. A limit you can lift in one tap stops being a limit, and every app in this category eventually hands you that tap.
of "you've hit your limit" warnings get clicked straight through.
Out of every hundred warnings, eight actually stop someone.
Kim et al., GoalKeeper · ACM IMWUT, 2019
of long-term users of a self-control tool had quietly switched every intervention off by their 200th visit, still believing they would tighten the rules again later.
Kovacs et al. · CHI, 2021
What we can tell you now
Phone Escape is not another blocker.
The details stay quiet until launch. Four things we will say:
The rest is the interesting part. That stays quiet until launch.
Waitlist
First 100 get it free for life.
Being built now for iPhone and Android. The first hundred people here keep it free for good, whatever it costs later. No launch date promised, no newsletter, and no trial that quietly charges you. A confirmation now, and one email when it works. Whatever the app learns about your usage stays on your phone.
How many friends would actually do this with you?