Delayed Interventions [iOS]

Delayed interventions have been a highly requested feature for one sec since we introduced Re-Interventions:

What if you could freely use Instagram for 3 minutes, to post a story, or reply to an important message – while being protected from getting stuck in Reels and wasting half an hour without even noticing?

That’s exactly the idea of Delayed Interventions that are introduced in one sec 4.1 (requires iOS 16 or newer):

Instead of intervening you directly when opening a target app, the intervention is delayed by a time interval set by you:

I recommend setting a low interval (e.g. 1 to 3 minutes) to allow for quick, intentional app usage, and still giving you the pressure to not get distracted.

When you reach the limit (e.g. 3 minutes) on your target app, the app will be blocked and you can’t continue to use it. Instead, you have to go through an intervention (e.g. breathing exercise) to unlock more time. Then you will be able to select how much more time you’ll need on the target app.

Besides that, the delay is reset / restarted at every full hour.

one sec is always about finding the right balance of frustration: Our interventions are so effective (scientifically proven!) because they are annoying and frustrating.

Different users have different use-cases and different app require different interventions for different users.

Our scientific experiments have shown that both Immediate and Delayed Interventions are effective in their own ways:

• Immediate Interventions work by heavily reducing the amount of open attempts for target apps.

• Delayed Interventions work by heavily reducing the duration of using target apps.

• Both intervention types show a similar effectiveness in reducing overall screen time. In the end, you have to find the right tool that works for you!

You can actually set up both Immediate and Delayed interventions for different apps – some apps might require a more intense (=immediate) intervention (e.g. TikTok, Instagram, …) while others are fine to use with the Delayed Intervention (e.g. Mastodon, Mail App, …).

So it’s up to you: give it a try and be honest with yourself: which interventions helps you best stick to a intentional usage?

When adding a new app to one sec, you can directly select if the intervention should be shown immediately (= when opening the target app), after a delay, or if one sec should always ask for the delay.

You can also change that setting later on for apps that have already been added to one sec: To do so, open the Overview tab of one sec, and select the app you’d like to edit. Then select Customize → Intervention on App:

Here you can switch between Immediate, Delayed, and Always Ask, and change the time interval of the delay as well.