Spent two years trying every screen-time app, every grayscale hack, every app-limit trick. None of it stuck because the phone in my pocket was still a slot machine — same apps, same feed, same pull.

What actually worked: changing the device, not my willpower. If the phone physically can't open Instagram, there's no discipline required. No app store, no browser worth using, nothing to doomscroll on.

That's the whole thesis behind what I'm building at Keitai: a genuinely well-designed, minimal feature phone — 2.8" screen, real buttons, days of battery life, calls and texts and nothing else. Not a smartphone you'll relapse into. Not a $10 burner that looks like it's from 2003.

If you've tried to cut down screen time and it hasn't stuck, I'd guess it's the same reason mine didn't — the tool was still designed to pull you back in. Curious if others here have found a device-level fix vs. a willpower one.