The short verdict. Choose one sec if your problem is the reflex itself, the dozens of times a day your thumb opens Instagram before you’ve decided to. It’s research-backed, cheaper per year, and it runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android and in desktop browsers. Choose Bricked if your problem is less about opening and more about staying, the “quick look” that turns into 50 minutes. Bricked gives you a daily budget you can see filling up, then makes the apps solid until midnight, with only short, deliberate peeks. Neither is wrong. They catch you at different moments.
Bricked vs one sec at a glance
| one sec (as of Nov 2026) | Bricked | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (US) | Essentials free (one app). one sec pro $6.99/month, $19.99/year or $99.99 lifetime; family plans available | Free plan (up to 3 apps or categories). Bricked+ $2.90/week, $39.90/year (7-day free trial) or $59.99 lifetime |
| How it works | An intervention (breathing, a reflection, rotating your phone, typing text and more) each time you open a chosen app. Set up through a Shortcuts automation | A daily limit that fills a brick as you use your apps. When it’s full, Apple’s shield covers them until midnight. Plus schedules and Slide to brick |
| How you get in | Finish the intervention, then choose to continue or back out. “Re-intervention” can kick you out after a set time | 5-minute peeks only. Bricked+: press and hold, 3 s rising to 60 s. Free: a wait, none rising to 5 min |
| Strictness | Gentle by design; block mode and scheduled blocks for harder stops | Firmer by design; strict mode removes any early exit from focus sessions. You can still raise your limit or delete the app |
| Privacy | “All intervention logic runs locally on your device.” App Store label: usage data, not linked to you | No account, no ads, no third-party trackers. Limits, schedules and stats stay on your iPhone |
| Platforms | iPhone, iPad, Mac (App Store), Android, browser extensions | iPhone only, iOS 17+ |
Check the one sec App Store listing for current prices in your country.
A pause at the door vs a budget for the day
one sec works at the moment of opening. You tap TikTok, and instead of TikTok you get a few seconds of something else: a breath, a question, a short task. Then you decide. A lot of the time, the urge has already passed.
Bricked works over the whole day. You don’t get stopped on every open. Instead, a glass brick on Bricked’s Home screen fills with clay as you use the apps you picked: “22 MIN LEFT”. When your limit is gone, the apps turn to brick. Getting back in means a press-and-hold (Bricked+) or a wait (free) that gets longer with every unlock that day, and each unlock lasts just 5 minutes.
So the question is where you lose time:
- Lots of small, mindless opens? one sec’s pause catches each one.
- A few long sessions that get away from you, especially at night? A ceiling that actually holds helps more than a pause you’ve learned to sit through.
What the one sec study found
one sec has the strongest research story in this category, and it deserves to be described properly.
In a 2023 study in PNAS, David Grüning, Frederik Riedel and Philipp Lorenz-Spreen tracked 280 participants using one sec for six weeks. They report that on average, 36% of attempts to open a target app ended with the person closing it after the pop-up. Attempts to open the apps fell by 37% compared with the first week. Together, one sec cut actual openings of target apps by 57% after six weeks.
A follow-up preregistered online experiment with 500 people tested one sec’s three ingredients separately. The option to dismiss the app had the strongest effect. The time delay also reduced consumption. The deliberation message alone did not.
Why we don’t quote that number for Bricked
The 57% is one sec’s result, measured on one sec. Bricked works differently and has not been studied, so we won’t borrow the number or imply Bricked does the same.
What the study does support is a general principle: friction plus a real chance to back out can change behavior, and in the follow-up, the delay did some of that work. Bricked’s escalating hold and wait are a form of delay at the moment you want back in. That’s a reason to think the design is sensible, not proof that it works for you. The only honest test is your own Screen Time report after a couple of weeks.
Where one sec is the better choice
We’d point you to one sec if:
- You want the cheapest yearly plan. $19.99 a year in the US is about half of Bricked+.
- You use more than an iPhone. one sec has apps for iPad, Mac and Android, plus browser extensions, and you can use the same account across devices.
- You’d rather be nudged than stopped. A pause respects that some opens are fine. Bricked’s brick is a harder line.
- You like variety in the interruption. Breathing exercises, reflections, intention and emotion tracking, a Structured integration that blocks apps while tasks are open, and logging mindful minutes to Apple Health.
- Peer-reviewed evidence matters to you. one sec’s own app has been studied in a published paper. Bricked hasn’t.
Where Bricked fits better
Bricked is the better match if:
- You’ve started tapping through the pause. Some people find any interruption becomes routine after a few weeks. A daily limit that ends in a lock is a different kind of barrier.
- Your worst time is a long stretch, not lots of opens. At 11 p.m. the problem isn’t opening the app. It’s closing it. Bricked’s bedtime schedule locks apps at a set time even if you have minutes left.
- You want a hard stop when you choose one. Slide to brick locks apps for 25 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours or until tonight. With strict mode on, there’s no early exit at all.
- You want progress you can see. The filling brick, a day streak, weekly stats and brick tiers you earn with scroll-free time, from Clay to Diamond.
- You’d rather skip automations. Bricked uses Apple’s Screen Time framework directly. There’s no Shortcuts automation to set up.
The honest limits: Bricked blocks whole apps, not just Reels or Shorts inside them. And you can always raise your own limit or delete the app. Bricked adds friction at the moment of weakness. It isn’t a prison.
Can you use both?
You might. A pause on every open and a ceiling for the day solve different halves of the problem. We haven’t tested one sec and Bricked together on the same phone, so start with one or two apps and see how they behave.
Comparing more options? See how Bricked stacks up against ScreenZen and Apple Screen Time, or read our roundup of the best app blockers for iPhone.