Gen Zers are buying $40 social media app blockers to cut off the ‘slot machine in your pocket’

Among the frenzy of videos promoting healthier diets, marathon running, and sobriety, one trend catching on with young people—ironically on social media—is the idea of a digital detox, taking time away from our phone’s most addictive apps to improve everything from sleep to focus. 

The idea has spawned a flurry of products which are helping their customers resist the temptation of automatically picking up their phone and scrolling social media during any and every lull in the day.

One company capitalizing on the trend is Bloom, the maker of a $39 device created by two college students in 2024. The stainless steel Bloom card is paired with an app that lets users choose which apps to block and during what time period. Users can also choose to add one, two, or three five-minute breaks when they can use the blocked apps. Once a user taps the card to their phone it locks them out of the blocked apps until they tap the card  to their phone again. 

Bloom cofounder Giancarlo Novelli, a senior at UCLA, told Fortune the product helped him mitigate his own phone use and solve his focus problems. Bloom can be an important tool for young people because of just how bad phone addiction has gotten in the past several years, he added.

“In the 1900s, everyone was smoking cigarettes, and it was just normal, until the studies came out that it’s bad for you,” he said. “It takes time for these things to catch up, and I think it’s very similar for phone use.” 

Short-form video apps like Instagram and TikTok, which Novelli said are the apps he blocks the most, only emerged in the past decade, he noted, and the ramifications of the addictiveness of these apps, which he compared to a “slot machine in your pocket” because of the feel-good chemicals they release in people, haven’t been fully studied.

To be sure, a 2025 study by researchers at the University of Alberta, found many published articles on the topic associated social media use with depression and anxiety, although this could depend on people’s usage patterns. 

Kristian del Rosario, a 28-year-old personal injury lawyer and influencer based in New York City, told Fortune she’s steadily seen her productivity improve since one of Bloom’s competitors, Brick, sent her one of its products, which usually costs $59. The company did not pay her to promote it, although she posted a video about the device earlier this month.

Del Rosario said she likes Brick because it creates more of an obstacle when she wants to instinctively open her most used apps, unlike the Screen Time feature on iPhone which also lets users block some apps until they enter their passcode. Because she has to tap her phone on the product to unlock the apps, it helps her create a physical distance and resist the temptation when she most needs to focus, she said.

Brick founder TJ Driver told Fortune creating this separation between a person and their phone helps turn automatic doomscrolling into more of a conscious decision. 

“By adding this extra moment of intentionality, Brick gives users a moment to decide whether they really want to open an app or stay present,” Driver said in a statement to Fortune.

At the same time, Del Rosario said she likes that the product allows her to keep her messages on so she can communicate with her clients and also turn the blocker off if she’s taking a break. The device has even helped her rearrange her bedtime routine for the better.

“At night, instead of doom scrolling, it allows me to just kind of unwind because I can’t access the apps at all,” she said. 

Both Bloom’s and Brick’s physical devices may also give them an edge with young people who increasingly prefer the analog over the digital. From vinyl records to handwritten cards, Gen Z is seeking out the real-world equivalents of apps like Spotify or iMessage to reduce their screen time and reminisce about the days of the tangible they may not have experienced. 

The increased popularity of devices like Bloom and Brick also comes as the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, has pushed back on claims that the app he oversees is addictive. During a trial this week against Instagram parent company Meta in which a 20-year-old plaintiff claimed she had developed problems with her mental health because of a social media addiction, Mosseri said there is a difference between “clinical addiction” and “problematic” use. 

Whether these apps are addictive or not, Del Rosario said it’s clear young people are finding it hard to bring down their screen time, even when they want to. 

“Gen Z in general, I think we are very obsessed with our phones, and it really just stems from the fact that we consume information, we find out what’s going on in the world that way,” she said. 

Novelli, for his part, wants to keep growing Bloom after he graduates later this year, including potentially expanding the product’s capabilities to laptops, which can become another time-suck, he said, because even without scrolling people can still get stuck in YouTube autoplay doom loop or an endless Netflix binge.

While the popularity of these app-blocking devices increases (Novelli said the company has sold more than 60,000), questions remain about their efficacy when the people who buy them are mainly discovering the devices through the internet—and talking about them on social media. This disconnect has led some, like Slate contributing writer Alex Kirshner to question whether influencers who talk about using a device like Brick or Bloom online, are actually being genuine.

“If I see an influencer post about how they’re so committed to never being on their phone, look at my Brick. I’m smelling bulls–t. I’m thinking this is made up because the fact that you’re doing it is kind of in contravention to this idea that you’re putting forward,” Kirshner said in an episode of Slate’s internet culture podcast, In Case You Missed It (ICYMI). 

Yet, Novelli said he thinks social media, ultimately, isn’t the issue. The real problem is the way people are automatically reaching for their phone to scroll during all hours of the day. Social media is still a great tool to communicate with others, and is especially helpful, if it’s done right, for spreading the importance of cutting  back on screen time, he added.

“There’s no problem with social media in regulation. The question is, how do you regulate it in the best way possible for yourself,” he said.