Socket | Recovering Attention

Social media / video feeds are designed around addictive variable rewards and we're especially vulnerable to their dopamine-rich allure during study. All-out bans usually fail at recovering time. Here are three extensions - SocialFocus, UnTrap for YouTube, and News Feed Eradicator - which effectively strip the addictive properties of common feeds while keeping platforms usable.

I frequently find myself drawn to websites that are a total waste of time. On a standard day off, there isn't much reason to fuss over the occasional hour (or three) of mindless scrolling through junk like DIY that I'll never actually do, "Top 10 Amazon Finds" that I'll never buy, and copious political bullsheit … but in the depths of study when we are most time poor, and in need of laser focus, spirals into the feed become problematic very quickly.

There's plenty of research on why feeds are so sticky – this isn't news – but on a deeper read around their effects, a couple things have taken me by surprise: (1) how much more vulnerable we are to scrolling during study, and (2) how much it might be costing our broader study efforts.

Why feeds get harder to resist while studying

We're all vulnerable to the allure of scrolling. Feeds are designed around personalised 'variable rewards' (a mechanism borrowed from slot machines) to keep our minds invested in the next dopamine hit and therefore interested enough to continue scrolling.

We are especially vulnerable during study periods. The reason for this is just mechanical. Deep study is one of the most delayed-reward activities we can do, with our abstract payoff being months away at best. Scrolling is the opposite: the payoff is within the next half-second, and always within arm's reach.

Our prefrontal cognitive efforts being used to sustain focus while learning new concepts are the same as what we're using to suppress the urge to scroll. Just like a muscle, our will to resist temptation depletes over time. After three hours of deep reading, the part of our brain that would normally say "not now" has likely clocked off for the day. This is to say that feeds are more likely to win us over after we spend willpower on study, at which point there is little left to spend on resisting. And once you're in the spiral, well …

What scrolling costs your study

As if lost time wasn't enough, emerging evidence links heavy short-form video consumption to impaired attention and worse academic outcomes. One undergraduate study found a moderate negative correlation between reel consumption and GPA, and meta-analyses of social media use more broadly consistently find small negative associations with academic performance. The effect sizes are modest but the direction is consistent enough to take seriously. Bad news for those of us who spend time scrolling between pomodoros.

Three tools to block feeds without quitting the apps

Despite all this, an all-out ban often isn't useful or effective. The trick is to keep the useful bits and strip away the addictive scaffolding. I've been using the following resources to achieve this over the last couple of years and reckon many of you may find them useful too. For the record, I have no vested interest in any of these. Together they cost close to nothing and take about ten minutes to set up.

SocialFocus (phone + browser): socialfocus.app. Hides the addictive elements of social media (feeds, Shorts, Reels, comments, suggestions) while letting you keep the platform.

UnTrap for YouTube (phone + browser): untrap.app. By the same maker as SocialFocus, but YouTube-specific. Hides Shorts, the recommendation sidebar, end-screen suggestions, and the home page feed.

News Feed Eradicator (desktop): Chrome Web Store. Replaces the Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn feed with a nice, thoughtful quote. You can still post, message, and check specific profiles … there's just no feed to scroll.

Where to put your recovered attention

If you do free up some time, the next question is what to do with it. Our minds will eagerly look for other habits to replace the ones we've disabled, and with impending exams, it is possible to sneak study in as a replacement.

I've deliberately designed Socket to leverage similar variable-reward pathways that are pointed at your curriculum instead of an algorithm's feed. It rewards you for working on parts of the syllabus you've been avoiding and celebrates small recall wins along the way. If you feel good doing questions in spare moments, reflexively open Socket when you pick up your phone, or enjoy looking at your streak (or conversely anxious about losing it), these are manifestations of new study habits forming. Social media weaponizes this kind of habit formation; we're using it to squeeze a little more study out of you before you walk into your exam.

Alternatively, take your found time and do (literally) anything else. There is more to life than study and scrolling, after all. Carpe diem.

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