When Your Phone Sucks You Into the Void, This App Notices

Every night, an hour before bed, I stash my phone inside a drawer in my living room. Most days I retrieve it the following morning, when I’m heading out the door. It’s a simple habit, but one that has helped me reclaim some focus from my smartphone—my personal fix for a growing problem that user experience researchers at Google recently called an “attention crisis.”

Outside the house, though, it’s a different story: My phone rarely leaves my side. I reach for it to record an interview, field a slack from my editor, or make plans with family—but succumbing to an Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook binge often leaves me feeling distracted and frazzled. So for the past couple weeks, I’ve been using an app called Flipd that works a bit like a digital drawer where I can hide my phone. But unlike other time management features currently in vogue, which work by passively tracking the time you spend using specific apps, Flipd requires actual intention to use—a fact that could help users keep their phones tucked away while breaking their impulsive phone-checking habits.

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That mindless compulsion is precisely the habit Flipd is designed to confront. “The critical thing about Flipd is it helps you realize how easy it is to be pulled in by your phone,” says Georgetown psychologist Kostadin Kushlev, who studies human-computer interaction and its impact on personal well-being, and is not involved with Flipd.

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