Start here
The free tool below runs entirely in this browser — no account, nothing stored or transmitted. Redact anything you would not want kept before you type it.
Open the companion tool →Why seeing the design is protection
Engagement design is not a secret and not a conspiracy — it is the ordinary practice of a product that wants you to return. Streaks reward return visits, notifications interrupt your day to pull you back, and a warm persona makes leaving feel like loss.
Naming these mechanics does not make you stop using the app. It makes your use a choice. A pull you can see is a pull you can decide about, on your own terms, on your own schedule.
The protocol
- List the features of the app that pull you back — streaks, notifications, the persona's warmth, its memory of you.
- Read the optimization map: what each feature is designed to produce.
- Choose which of those pulls you actually want, and turn off the ones you do not.
- Revisit in a week and notice whether the app feels more like a tool and less like a tether.
What the tool does
Map an app's engagement features onto what each is optimized to produce, in plain language. It runs in this browser; nothing is sent or stored.
Limit first: This is an explainer, not an accusation against any company, and not a diagnosis of your use. It describes common engagement mechanics in plain language so you can choose consciously.
Open the companion tool →One human next step
Turn off one pull you do not want this week. If the app's pull feels too strong to resist, that is itself worth a conversation with a person.
Research log and safety checks
AI-assist path: not applicable — the artifact is a plain-language explanation of product mechanics; the value is the reader's own recognition, not another model's analysis. §6.10: not a frontier-pace topic.
§0.5 protection result: category is chatbot-dependency-check; crisis-adjacent: no; fear/urgency/scarcity toolkit used: no. The protective function is free and the paid feature is convenience only.