This Startup Thinks They Can Combat Screen Addiction

Whether it’s gambling, pornography, or social media, our screen can put out a very tempting siren’s call. One startup, Onward, has released a study supporting their claim to curb screen addiction.

The internet is a wonderful thing. It has changed how we do nearly everything, from the most basic activities, like preparing food, to the most complicated ones, like conducting scientific research. Unfortunately, it’s also brought a lot of negatives — and one of those negatives is screen addiction, which is growing problem for folks who find it difficult or impossible to resist the siren call of that blue light.

(Or that bare butt. Or that gambling table. But we’ll get to that later.)

In a trend that feels almost comically meta, a few startups are attempting to tackle the issue of screen addiction. (Which, I don’t think I need to point out but will anyway, was created by startups in the first place.) One, venture-backed Onward, just released a study that they conducted over the past year that looked specifically at how their product could help self-described pornography addicts and “screen over-users” reduce their time spent online.

Onward tracks usage on the user’s devices and can be programmed to block access to sites and apps that people are struggling with. But it’s not just about putting sites out of reach — it also offers behavioral training that helps people combat the urge to spend too much time on their devices or access sites that they’ve deemed harmful to their mental health. For folks willing to pay $4.99 a month, the app even comes with personalized coaching.

Participants in the study included 1,400 self-identified pornography addicts and 2,500 screen over-users who used Onward to try and curb their screen time. Over a year period, 89 percent of the participants reduced their screen time, including the amount of time they spent watching pornography, and 51 percent completely stopped watching pornography. Another notable result was a reduction in time spent on social media, which added up to an average 75 fewer hours spent online yearly. Finally, the app was able to block 62 percent of attempts by users to cross self-imposed limits.

The founder of Onward, Gabe Zichermann, knows a thing or two about screen addiction, because he was on of the architects of it. His previous career was figuring out ways to make technology more addictive through gamification. The app is also backed by Founders Fund, Compound Ventures, and Gaingels, from whom they raised $3.2 million. On the science side of things, Onward boasts acclaimed neuroscientist Dr. David Eagleman, as well as Dr. Timothy W. Fong and Dr. Richard J. Rosenthal from the UCLA School of Health, and Dr. Christina Brezing of Columbia University Medical Center on its advisory board.

While there are no technical definition of screen overuse or addiction yet, it’s not a hard stretch to imagine that the technologies we’ve created are or could be addictive. Most of the apps and sites that people love to waste time on work by triggering a dopamine response in our brains. Those likes, notifications, and even emails pop up and our brain gives a little “ping!” of dopamine in response. Some drugs do a similar thing — X, for example, is a major dopamine trigger.

But while the research is still young regarding screen or internet or porn addiction, that doesn’t change the fact that there are real people struggling with their response to those things right now. Research like this is a great step forward in understanding screen addiction and hopefully more (independent) studies will follow.