Context

When transitioning from one task to another, or before attempting an emotionally draining activity, people tend to grab their phones.

Problem

Grabbing one’s phone as a form of fear avoidance or as a relief from anxiety often leads to… an increase of fear and anxiety. A person will often lose themselves in the infinite scroll of distracting content. Such behavior tends to be automatic and mindless, and often unsatisfying. Multiple forces are in play: the need for emotional nourishment, the high availability of engaging yet unsatisfying content, the effort needed to compose and realign oneself, the instinctive nature of flicking phone screens, tapping apps and scrolling. In stressful situations, the marketplace of our attention rewards immediate satisfaction. This is the behavior that must be countered.

Solution

A 3 to 10 seconds delay before opening certain applications, leaving the person time to breathe and reflect on their reason for opening them in the first place. This delay is sufficient for the person to reclaim agency on their time, and resist switching their brain to automatic mode.

Beneficial contexts

This pattern could be applied whenever a significant context switch is to be experienced: before an important meeting, upon discovering a bug, when learning difficult news, when attempting to post a flaming reply to a bad tweet.