You close the tab. Ten minutes later it's open again. Not because you decided to open it — you just did, the way you might scratch an itch. Social media apps are built by teams whose entire job is making that loop as frictionless as possible. Willpower is not a fair fight against that.
The fix isn't more discipline. It's removing the option during the hours it matters.
Why "Just Don't Open It" Doesn't Work
Social platforms are designed around variable rewards — you don't know if the next scroll has something interesting, so you keep scrolling to find out. That's the same mechanism slot machines use. Deciding not to check Instagram requires you to win a tiny willpower battle dozens of times a day, and you only need to lose once for the session to be gone.
Bookmarking the site, logging out, or hiding the app icon all fail for the same reason: they add a few seconds of friction, but a few seconds isn't enough to stop a habitual reach. You need the option to not exist during work hours, not just be slightly harder to reach.
Block It at the System Level
Lock In! blocks social media domains system-wide on Mac, so Instagram, X, TikTok, Facebook, and Reddit are unreachable in every browser during a focus session — not just the one you happened to configure.
A Preset Social Blocklist
Instead of typing out every social domain by hand, a built-in Social preset covers the major platforms in one tap. Add anything niche — a specific forum, a Discord server's web client — to the same list in seconds.
Works in Every Browser
A macOS network extension enforces the block below the browser layer, so switching from Safari to Chrome to get around it does nothing. If the domain is blocked, it's blocked everywhere on the machine.
Strict Mode for the Days You Know You'll Cave
Some days a simple block is enough. Other days — a stressful morning, a boring task — you know you'll talk yourself into disabling it. Strict Mode removes that option until the timer runs out, so the decision is made once, at the start, when you have the most resolve.
Pair It with a Timer, Not a Permanent Ban
Blocking social media forever isn't realistic or necessary — you just need it gone during deep work blocks. Set a session for your focused hours and let it lift automatically afterward, so checking your feed at lunch is a choice, not a slip.
Less scrolling, more shipped work. Get Lock In! on the Mac App Store