🤠 You Stare At Screens For 10+ Hours A Day. Let's Talk About That.

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IT Culture Wednesday 🤠

You stare at screens for 10+ hours a day. Let's talk about that.

GM IT pros!

Happy Wednesday! Today we're stepping away from the usual news roundup for something a little more personal.

-Stetson

We Are The Most Screen-Addicted People On Earth (And We Know It)

Let's be real for a second.

You and I spend our entire workday staring at screens. Monitors. Dashboards. Terminals. Ticket queues. Teams messages. Then we clock out, pick up our phones, and stare at another screen. We scroll through Reddit, doom-scroll the news, watch YouTube, check Slack one more time "just in case," and then wonder why our eyes feel like sandpaper and we can't fall asleep.

The average adult spends about 7 hours a day on screens. Remote workers? Closer to 13 hours. And if you're in IT? Let's just say nobody's tracking our numbers because the results would be upsetting.

We're the people who literally fix technology for a living — and we're the worst at managing our own relationship with it. That's the irony. We'll configure screen time limits on a CEO's kid's iPad and then open TikTok for the ninth time before lunch.

📱 The Phone Problem Is Different From The Work Problem

Here's the thing — I can't exactly stop using screens for work. That's the gig. I'm not going to hand-write PowerShell scripts on a legal pad.

But the phone? That's where the real damage happens. You know the pattern: you pick it up to check one notification, and 45 minutes later you're watching a guy restore a rusty axe on Instagram. The phone isn't a tool at that point — it's a slot machine, and every app is designed to keep you pulling the lever.

Research backs this up. Each extra hour of nighttime screen use costs you 15 to 25 minutes of sleep. And 41% of adults who exceed 9 hours of daily screen time report anxiety and depression symptoms. When you're already at 8+ hours for work, it doesn't take much personal scrolling to tip you into that territory.

For IT folks specifically, it's a double hit. You're mentally drained from troubleshooting and context-switching all day, and then you "relax" by... more context-switching on your phone. Your brain never actually gets a break.

🧱 So I'm Trying Something: It's Called Brick

Full transparency: I'm going to share an affiliate link in this email. I want to be upfront about that because that's how we do things around here. You'll see the link below — if you buy through it, I get a small commission. But I'm writing about this because I actually bought one and I'm genuinely trying it, not because someone paid me to say nice things.

So — Brick. It's a small physical device (about the size of a thick coaster) with an NFC chip inside. You pair it with an app, choose which apps you want blocked, and then tap your phone to the Brick. That's it. Your distracting apps disappear. To get them back, you have to physically walk to the Brick and tap your phone again.

That's the whole concept: real, physical friction.

It's not another app-based screen time thing you can override with two taps. You literally have to get up and go to the device. And if you're smart about it (I stuck mine on the fridge), that walk of shame is just enough to make you ask yourself: "Do I actually need to check Twitter right now, or am I just bored?"

The answer, 9 times out of 10, is that you're just bored.

🤔 My Day One Honest Take

I'll be straight with you — I'm only one day into using this thing. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you it changed my life. That would be dishonest and also kind of weird.

But here's what I can tell you after day one:

The physical barrier actually works differently than software limits. When your phone's Screen Time popup says "you've reached your limit," your brain immediately goes "okay cool, ignore limit for today." We've all done it. We've all hit that button a thousand times. But when your apps are just... gone, and the only way to get them back requires you to stand up and walk across the room? That's a different kind of friction. It's friction that actually makes you think.

I blocked Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok during work hours. And I noticed something almost immediately — I kept reflexively picking up my phone, unlocking it, and then... there was nothing to doom-scroll. So I put it back down. After a few hours, I stopped picking it up entirely. That was surprising.

The Brick itself costs $59, doesn't need charging (it's a passive NFC tag — no battery), and the app is free. You can set schedules so it auto-bricks at certain times, and you get 5 emergency unbricks in case you genuinely need access to a blocked app.

Here's my affiliate link if you want to check it out: getbrick.com — Check out Brick

(Affiliate link — if you purchase through this link, I earn a small commission. Transparency always.)

💡 Some Non-Brick Tips Too (Because Not Everything Has To Cost Money)

Whether or not you grab a Brick, here are some things that actually help with screen fatigue and phone addiction — especially for people who can't avoid screens at work:

🔹 Grayscale your phone. Seriously. Turn off the color on your phone (it's in Accessibility settings on both iOS and Android). Apps are designed to be colorful and engaging — stripping the color makes your phone boring, and boring is the point.

🔹 Move social media apps off your home screen. Put them in a folder on page 3. The extra taps create just enough friction to break the autopilot.

🔹 Set a physical boundary for your phone during work. Put it in a drawer. Put it in another room. If it's within arm's reach, you'll grab it. That's not a willpower problem — that's how human brains work.

🔹 Use the 20-20-20 rule for eye strain. Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Your eyes will thank you. Your optometrist will be proud.

🔹 Actually take your lunch break away from a screen. I know. Revolutionary. But eating lunch while watching YouTube and then wondering why you feel like you didn't get a break is a very IT thing to do. Go outside. Look at a tree. The tickets will still be there when you get back.

That's your Wednesday read. Nothing earth-shattering — just an honest conversation about a problem every single one of us has. We're IT pros. We love technology. But technology doesn't always love us back, especially when it's engineered to hijack our attention 24/7.

I'll report back on the Brick after I've had more time with it. If it's great, you'll hear about it. If it's not, you'll hear about that too.

Stay paranoid. Stay patched. See you Friday 🤠

-Stetson