Changes!
“Get your brain back.”
That’s our working motto, at least until we come up with a better way to say it.
The purpose of Exist is to begin correcting some of the wacky and not-good things that the internet has done to people’s subjective experience of life.
In the latest version of our iOS app, we made some updates we think will better serve you:
When you open one of the apps that you’ve asked us to help you use more intentionally, you’ll get to choose how long this particular session lasts.
Previously, Exist only intercepted you once per day, then let you run amok inside your “problem apps” until you maxed out your daily limit.
Now, we’ll ask you if you want 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes right now, or for no restriction at all (other than the daily cap you created).
This does a couple of things:
For one, it increases the frequency with which you’re interrogating your own impulse to open a given app (aka, every time you open it, vs 1X per day).
It also might healthier to use [insert dopamine-hijacking app of your choice] for 5 minutes six times than 30 minutes one time.
Either way, this gives you more control. And intentionality is a core part of Exist…
Because, to be as cliche as possible, it’s about using your phone and not the other way around.
Please let us know if you prefer this to the old format!
2. Exist now has accounts.
This adds a slightly annoying extra step in onboarding, but it serves a few purposes:
One, if you ever have to get a new phone, all your preferences and streaks are preserved.
Two, as Exist possibly expands onto other platforms (for example, letting you block sites and control usage across Chrome, Safari, etc.) there needs to be a way to link all the information together.
3. “Something to Think About”
Every day you open Exist, there’s a new little blurb to read, and it’s there for a specific reason:
This might sound stupidly obvious, but a necessary ingredient in consciously overcoming a bad behavior (like doomscrolling, for example) is to first recognize that it’s even a negative at all, and specifically why.
For example, as late as the mid 20th century, almost half of US adults smoked cigarettes, and part of the reason is that people literally didn’t know it was bad. Or, if they suspected that it was, they couldn’t point to irrefutable data validating them.
Only once the public started to accept the link between smoking and cancer did the rates really begin to fall , down to about 11% today.
“But statistics are disputed,” LOL.
Possibly, one of the reasons smartphone addiction has proliferated so quickly is that it has outpaced a common understanding of precisely what makes it harmful.
There hasn’t been a truly concrete consequence that people have understood, like a higher risk of disease from smoking cigarettes.
This might not ever exist so clearly for smartphones (though in a way, this could be what makes them dangerous).
As culture evolves and matures, people are increasingly able to put words to what the internet is doing to us, and they’re becoming more interested in restoring their brains
In “Something to Think About,” each day we share an insight with some ability to make us genuinely want to use our phones less.
Our hope is that, with increasing knowledge, it feels progressively more preposterous to scroll for hours each day, and therefore progressively easier to stop doing it.
4. You can now submit a feature request directly through the app.
We’re building this for maximum effectiveness after all, and we welcome ideas to make Exist better and more helpful.
So, if you have a request of any kind, go into Settings > Help Shape Exist > Request a Feature, type in whatever you’re dreaming up, and we’ll see it.
HOW TO TEST THE APP!
If you’re already on the list, you should be getting an invite at 3 PM EST on August 18th.
The app will be called “3.0 (9)” in TestFlight.
If you’re not on the list and you want to be, drop your email wherever on this website you see the email form, and we’ll reach out.
Peace.
