The "One Sec" App Helped Me Stop Doomscrolling Once & For All

I’ll be honest. Nothing feels better than a long, mind-numbing scroll on my phone, especially after a busy day. Give me dog videos, thrift hauls, GRWMs — I’ll watch it all and enjoy every second.

And while scrolling can be relaxing, it can easily get out of hand. It’s not uncommon for me to pick up my phone to check an email or text a friend, accidentally open TikTok or Instagram, and then get caught up for hours on end. It’s as if my thumbs have a mind of their own.

It’s why I wanted to try One Sec, an app that helps you break this cycle by giving you a chance to pause and think before you open an app — particularly the ones that tend to suck you in. It combines science-backed mindfulness techniques and the power of a short, thoughtful pause to help your endless scrolling.

It’s a good one to download if you’re tired of wasting time but can’t seem to break your phone habit, you’re sick of constantly opening and reopening apps without even meaning to, if you get distracted by your phone a little too easily, or if you simply want to spend less time online. Here’s what it was like to give it a try.

Fast Facts

• Price: Free one-week trial, then $19.99/year
• Best for: Breaking a scrolling habit, using your phone more mindfully
• My rating: 4/5
• What I like: Customizable, helps you think before scrolling
• What I don't like: Tricky to set up (you have to connect it to the Shortcuts app)

What To Know About One Sec

One Sec — stylized as “one sec” — aims to help you “fight the social media algorithms” by attempting to prevent you from opening your favorite apps in the first place. According to the app, it has already saved users a total of 167,302 years of scrolling.

It works by adding more “friction” between you and the apps you love. When you try to open one of your faves, One Sec triggers a pop-up that prompts you to pause for five seconds and take a deep breath.

After you’ve paused, you then decide if you still want to open the app or navigate out of it to do something else. In the One Sec app itself, you can see an Overview of how many times you’ve tried to open other apps and how much time you’ve saved as a result.

One Sec works like a charm in the moment by preventing you from mindlessly opening apps, but it can also help you out long-term. The more often you check in with yourself and delay the gratification of opening an app, the more likely you are to override the desire to open apps in the future.

Trying It Out

Out of all the many apps on my phone, Instagram is in my top three most opened. I check it multiple times a day, even when I’m supposed to be doing something else. Hours can slip by in what feels like an instant when I’m looking through my Explore page.

One Sec’s reality check has been so helpful. Each time I’ve tried to open it since downloading One Sec, I did the suggested breathing exercise designed to calm you down and help you check in with yourself. There’s an animation to watch, and your phone also vibrates, which makes it feel pretty immersive.

After the breath, you get to see how many times you’ve attempted to open the app within the past 24 hours. (I tried to open Instagram over 10 times in less than a day. Embarrassing!) Then, you choose what you want to do next.

If you want, you can open the app anyway, but be forewarned that One Sec will want to know why. Are you bored? Looking for an escape? Stalking a crush? Or simply relaxing? I liked that it made me check in with myself and assess why I was holding my phone in the first place. Often, this pause made it easier for me to do something else.

I also added a few customizations within the app so it would suggest something for me to do instead of scrolling. I went with wellness alternatives, like making a cup of tea or taking a quick cold shower, as well as some favorite hobbies, like watching a movie or going for a walk. The idea is that these things would still give me what I was looking for — a mental break, a zing of excitement, or a chill moment — but without losing hours to my screen.

Occasionally, I’d navigate back to the actual One Sec app to check the summary of how many opens it prevented and how much time it saved me, which was a whopping 24 minutes within the first hour of having the app.

Here’s the thing: Since there’s no way for the app to truly know how long I would have scrolled, I realized this is just a rough estimate. The real magic came from seeing how many times I opened the app but then decided to do something else instead.

The Verdict

Since downloading One Sec, I’ve definitely stopped opening Instagram as often as I used to. I even find the idea a little bit boring now. More often than not, the deep breath and gentle pause were enough to steer me away.

I also liked that it reminded me there’s more to life than scrolling. Instead of glazing over for hours, I could go for a walk or do something mindful for myself instead. I’ve found myself putting my phone down and going back to work, making a tea, stretching — or just embracing some boredom.

For anyone who needs a more intense wall between themselves and Instagram, there is a “Strict Block” option as well as a “Block” timer. Both prevent you from opening the app at all, and it’s perfect if you’re studying, working, or trying to sleep. You can also set the app to cut you off after a set amount of time to prevent hours of doomscrolling.

For me, the five-second pause has been enough to keep me away roughly eight of 10 times, and I already feel like I’ve gotten back so much time. Next up? I’ll be adding TikTok to my One Sec list, no doubt.