But it doesn't necessarily take more than 21 days. According to the linked article, the average modeled time to plateau was 66 days, but the range was from 18 to 254 days.
It doesn't limit apps, it just displays your screen time in a permanent notification and allows you to view and export past statistics.
I've found that to be very effective. From a systems perspective, it amounts to adding a new feedback loop, similar to this leverage point described by Donella Meadows[1]:
There was this subdivision of identical houses, the story goes, except that for some reason the electric meter in some of the houses was installed in the basement and in others it was installed in the front hall, where the residents could see it constantly, going round faster or slower as they used more or less electricity. With no other change, with identical prices, electricity consumption was 30 percent lower in the houses where the meter was in the front hall.
We systems-heads love that story because it’s an example of a high leverage point in the information structure of the system. It’s not a parameter adjustment, not a strengthening or weakening of an existing loop. It’s a NEW LOOP, delivering feedback to a place where it wasn’t going before.
Thanks! That app looks quite nice (especially the virtualization) but I already know how much I use my phone (too much :)) and that obtrusive feedback will only get me so far. So I do need an app that goes a bit further and allows me to track & block usage of applications.
This comment, at the end of the thread, is particularly interesting:
My Pixel 6 was confiscated by the German police after a political rally. I was recently able to pick it up again. From an inquiry with my lawyer, the following emerged: The authorities tried to read the device with both UFED4PC and Cellebrite Premium Touch. In addition, software from other forensic providers was used without success. The software did not succeed in breaking the system. The device was in BFU mode and had a 30-digit PIN. USB port was deactivated. As of March 2025, I can therefore say that it is not possible for Cellebrite to break a secured GrapheneOS.
“When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution... Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.”
This page covers the basics which are pretty timeless. You'd want to understand this before learning about any more recent advances.
It doesn't get into state of the art algorithms, for example proximal policy optimisation isn't mentioned although the paper on this was published in 2017 and is probably considered the best algorithm for at least some applications.
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