You've deleted it before. It came back.

It was never a
willpower problem.

Phone Escape is a new kind of limit for the apps that eat your day. Built on what actually works, not on what feels strict.

Coming soon to iPhone and Android

73
days a year

Every filled square is a day lost to the feed. That is what 4.8 hours a day adds up to, and it is the average for American teenagers. Half of them spend more.

Gallup, 2023 · n = 1,591 US teens

PhoneEscape

No ads. Nothing sold. Your screen time stays on your phone.

The problem

Most people already want out.

60%

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

45%

of US teens say they spend too much time on social media. The share is climbing.

202236%
202445%

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.

Wanting

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

Bad news

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.

92%

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

73%

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:

OneIt does not run on willpower. Nothing about it asks you to be strong at one in the morning.
TwoIt is not a switch you can flick off in a weak moment, which is the reason every other app eventually stops working.
ThreeYou are never locked out of your own phone. There is always a way through, and it always costs you something.
FourNobody else sees your screen time. Not us, not your friends. No leaderboard, no feed of anyone's failures.

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.