AI Hype VS Screen Addiction

March 2026

I can't help but wonder if the world has gone mad whenever I hear mainstream media discussing "AI".

Just three years ago the only people discussing AI were researchers and hobbyists. To someone who's first introduction to AI was using Python to write game-playing agents in a masters level university course, it feels as though we've branched off into a strange alternate universe. What used to be a niche topic in computer science is now plastered all over the internet. How the fuck did we get here?

You know it's bad when your friends start coming to you saying "hey I've got an app idea, let's build it with AI". When something goes from relative academic obscurity to main stream attention this quickly, it's generally cause to stop and think.

Notwithstanding the constant media reporting, every piece of software now seems to be falling over itself to "add AI" as a new feature.

It could be your operating system (looking at you, Windows), your note taking app, even your fridge. Everything seems to be jumping on the bandwagon and it's getting pretty annoying. Especially when you understand that the "AI" all these people are talking about is just giant neural nets trained on an obscene amount of data. Now there's obviously a bit more to it than that, but the distinction between different types of AI is completely lacking in most public discussions. Does it matter? Well if we do actually get these LLMs to achieve AGI without the goal posts shifting too quickly, then I suppose it doesn't actually matter what's happening under the hood.

So within this context, I present to you, with absolutely no sense of irony: another AI app!

If you're absolutely sick to death of AI being jammed into every device you use, but you're also absolutely sick of being addicted to screens, you can use the former to overcome the latter.

Yep. It's ridiculous, but it actually works.

And how does it work? Well you choose apps you want to spend less time on, and Reason blocks them. If you want to open one, you have to enter a reason why and how long you want to use the app for.

The free version of Reason doesn't process your reasons, it just unlocks whatever app you picked and locks it again after your chosen time limit expires. The thought of having to type in even a single word justification to open a distracting app is honestly enough of a deterrent to stop most people.

The paid version of Reason sends your unlock reason to an AI (LLM) that we host, and it decides if you can unlock the app or not. You can customise how strict this is. This means you can't just enter gibberish into the text input to open distracting apps. Nothing is stopping you from lying, but lying is pretty high friction anyway...

If you want to spend less time on your phone, and you hate the idea of explaining yourself to an AI, you should give Reason a try.

There's also always the option of getting rid of your phone. But Reason can help you as an intermediate step to that, if you want to take things that far.

And yes, this is an advertisement.