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Show HN: Scream to Unlock – Blocks social media until you scream “I'm a loser”

238 points madinmo | 2 comments | 25 Jun 25 10:49 UTC | HN request time: 0.858s | source

Hi all,

I kept wasting time on social media, even though I’d promised myself I’d stay focused. Regular site blockers didn’t help.

I needed something that felt annoying enough to break the habit. That’s how the idea came up: make the blocker ask me to say something embarrassing out loud before it lets me back in. If I actually have to yell “I’m a loser” into my mic. Even better - the louder I screamed, the more time I’d get.

So I put together Scream to Unlock. It’s silly, but so far it’s done its job. My social feeds stay locked unless I really want them.

Extension link - https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/scream-to-unlock-ye...

Its open source and transparent - https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/scream-to-unlock. No data collection or tracking, Audio processing happens locally in your browser. No recordings saved or transmitted.

Show context
recursive ◴[25 Jun 25 16:44 UTC] No.44379308[source]▶
A lot of people are objecting to the "loser" unlock key. A lot of ideas about what to do instead. I think the biggest problem with social media is the loss of attention span.

So I think it should force you to stare into the camera for 180 seconds without context switching to unlock. Practice focus to unlock distraction.

replies(1): >>44379853 #
kevindamm ◴[25 Jun 25 17:35 UTC] No.44379853[source]▶
180 seems very high to me and I've already quit social networks (well, except for some forum-like ones such as HN).

I like the idea, though, maybe five minutes for every 30 seconds of non-distracted gaze? Or something like that and tunable. Maybe even dynamic to the amount of time spent scrolling the feed in the last x hours?

replies(3): >>44380329 #>>44380428 #>>44384463 #
1. dankwizard ◴[26 Jun 25 05:35 UTC] No.44384463[source]▶
If 180 is high you've got Tiktok Brain my friend.
replies(1): >>44390000 #
2. kevindamm ◴[26 Jun 25 18:30 UTC] No.44390000[source]▶
If the task is to look at a camera lens uninterrupted, yeah, it's high. If it's reading or doing a creative endeavor, that's very brief. I was speaking in terms of the camera lens. There are so many other things I would rather be doing for three-plus minutes, and none of them are TikTok