One Sec
Adds a brief mindful pause before you open a distracting app, backed by a peer-reviewed study showing it cuts usage of the paused app significantly.
A tiny bit of friction at the moment of temptation, the same principle as automating price-checks so you're not the one doing the tempting re-check.
One Sec's idea is small and precise: instead of blocking an app outright, it interrupts the moment you open it with a brief, deliberate pause, a few seconds of breathing or a simple prompt asking if you actually meant to open it. That tiny bit of friction, right at the point of impulse, is enough for a real portion of automatic, unthinking app-opens to just not happen.
This isn't just a nice idea, it's been independently studied. A peer-reviewed study, run with Heidelberg University and the Max Planck Institute and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found a genuinely significant average reduction in usage of the specific paused app, roughly 57%, among the 280 participants over the 6-week field study. That's a real, external, rigorous piece of evidence behind the mechanism, not just a claim made by the app's own marketing, though worth being precise that it's usage of the app you've paused specifically, not a claim about total phone screen time.
The design philosophy is deliberately lighter-touch than a hard block. Where AntiSocial locks you out once you've hit a limit, One Sec interrupts at the moment of opening the app in the first place, catching the impulsive, unconsidered opens specifically, while still letting you through if you genuinely decide you want to use the app. For some people that lighter nudge is more sustainable long-term than a hard block that eventually gets worked around.
It offers a free trial before moving to a paid subscription for the full feature set. I'd treat these two, One Sec and AntiSocial, as different tools for a similar underlying problem, worth trying the pause-based approach first if a hard block has ever felt like something you resent and route around.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the claim about One Sec reducing usage by 57% actually verified?
Yes, it's based on a peer-reviewed study run with Heidelberg University and the Max Planck Institute, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an independent, external, academic source rather than a marketing claim made by the app itself. Worth being precise: the 57% figure is the average reduction in usage of the specific paused app, not a claim about total phone screen time, which fell by a smaller amount in the same study.
How is One Sec different from AntiSocial?
AntiSocial sets a usage limit and blocks the app once you hit it. One Sec interrupts at the moment you try to open the app in the first place with a brief pause, catching impulsive opens before they happen rather than after a limit's reached. They're two different mechanisms for a similar goal; some people find the lighter, earlier interruption of One Sec more sustainable than a hard block.
Does One Sec actually block me from using an app, or just delay me?
It delays rather than blocks. The pause is designed to interrupt automatic, unthinking app-opens, but if you consciously decide you want to proceed after the pause, you can. It's a friction-based nudge rather than an enforced lockout.
Is One Sec free?
There's a free trial to test the core pause feature, followed by a paid subscription for continued full access.
What kind of pause does One Sec actually show you?
Typically a short breathing prompt or a simple moment of friction before the target app opens, brief enough (a few seconds) not to feel like a hard barrier, but deliberate enough to interrupt the automatic reflex of opening the app.
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