The general principle is sound: adding friction between a cue and a behaviour reduces how often the behaviour happens. The direction is consistently found and the effects are moderate. Be straight about the evidence, though. It is graded low-certainty, comes mostly from short laboratory studies of food, and has never been compared head-to-head with plan-based approaches.
What is on firmer ground is the other half: intentions alone translate weakly into behaviour. Every second of friction between the cue and the act is a second in which the urge can crest and pass.
So set the blocker up, and expect to sometimes get past it. That is not a failure of the tool. A blocker's job is not to make the behaviour impossible; it is to make it a choice you notice yourself making instead of something that happened while you were scrolling.
Ranked by leverage, the blocker is not even the top item. Changing where devices live, so the phone charges in another room, does more than any software. Breaking the run-up, meaning the specific app or drift that reliably comes three steps before the act, is easier than blocking the act itself. And if it always happens after midnight, the intervention may be a sleep schedule.
Where this comes from
Read the full lesson: Environment design beats willpower →
Sources and how strong they are (1)
- Mixed evidenceIncreasing the friction of a behaviour - moving the cue further away, reducing availability, breaking the sequence that leads to it - reduces how often it occurs. The direction is consistently found and the effects are moderate, but the evidence is graded low-certainty, comes mostly from short laboratory studies of food, and has never been compared head-to-head with intention-based approaches. What is separately well established is that intentions on their own translate weakly into behaviour.
- Hollands et al. 2019, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews CD012573.pub3, doi:10.1002/14651858.CD012573.pub3, PMID 31482606
- Webb & Sheeran 2006, Psychological Bulletin 132(2):249-268, doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.2.249
- Wood & Neal 2007, Psychological Review 114(4):843-863, doi:10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.843
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