Using your phone intentionally is a difficult habit to develop. Operating systems like iOS and Android, along with social media networks like Instagram and TikTok, are building timers, nudges, and controls around the use of their apps and platforms.
But sometimes, as a force of habit, you unconsciously unlock your phone and end up doing nothing or scrolling through your timeline. To eliminate this habit, Ukrainian developer Yaroslav Neznaradko has created an Android app called Intenty that prompts you to provide a reason or perform an action such as breathing or stretching every time you unlock your phone. I developed an app.
Neznaradko started thinking about this issue in 2019, when he spent a lot of time on his phone.
“I find myself checking my phone too much (email, social media, news). I've tried screen time limits, focus mode, app blockers, etc., but it's more frustrating than helpful. Then I got an idea. What if I need to state and evaluate my intentions before using the phone? That's where it all started, as a prototype every time I need the phone. I wrote down my intentions and it worked,” he said in an email. told TechCrunch.
He released an early version in 2020, but it was limited to one use: asking users why they wanted to unlock their device. He also developed an iOS version, but found the platform had many limitations. In the end, the project stalled until 2023.
Last year, he rebranded the app to Intenty and focused on the Android version. At the time, ChatGPT was newly released, so we decided to ask people what their intent was to use the device with a chat-style interface when they unlocked their phone. However, it was not well received by users.
After researching human-computer interaction, Neznaradko released a redesigned version this summer that allows users to customize the nudges. You can choose nudges from several categories, including intention, necessity, grounding, attitude, and minimalism. All of these categories have different numbers of prompts, and you can also add new categories or prompts.
You can swipe the nudge screen to avoid entering a reason, but that defeats the purpose of using the app. You can set a cooldown time so that the nudge doesn't appear right after you lock your phone, in case you're waiting for someone to reply. Additionally, you can configure the intensity of the nudge pop-up by setting it to appear on every second, third, fifth, or tenth unlock.
The app also shows you the history of your response logs and the number of times you unlocked your phone over time.
Intenty is free, but if you pay $1.99 a month, you can schedule nudges, have a hard mode that forces you to enter a reason, and unlock a lock button that locks your phone from the nudge screen.
There are other apps that can help reduce screen time. Things like One Sec, which displays exercises and actions when you open a social media app, and Minimalist Screen Time, which turns your phone into a device with limited functionality.
After Neznaradko posted about the new version of Intenty on Hacker News on Wednesday, many people provided feedback on how they wanted the app to work without having to tweak it every time. Neznaradko said the challenge is understanding unlocking patterns and not prompting users when they want to perform a quick action, such as taking a photo.
He works on creating reminders or pop-ups during long phone usage sessions. He's also looking for ways to address nudge fatigue and automatically update the content of those prompts. In the long term, you may want to add image and video nudges as well.