You have control over it so it’ll soon be just like all the other pre-installed crap that you never use, but still eats up limited storage space.
With the addition, Google isn’t only thinking of users’ well-being, of course.
It’s reacting to increasing regulatory pressure around social media harms and algorithmic dangers. Today, many countries and U.S. states have created laws to restrict or ban minors from using social media, as the impacts of these apps on young people’s mental well-being have become better understood.
Google can now point to a feature like Pause Point to claim it’s part of the solution, not the problem.
Ahhh - there it is.
The thing that is much more concerning to me, tho: if this is pre-installed as a standard part of Android, then it could potentially be abused by work, carriers, governments, malware, etc. to control what you can and can’t easily do.
it could potentially be abused by work, carriers, governments, malware, etc. to control what you can and can’t easily do
It’s a feature, not a bug
Pause Point flips that idea on its head, as it interrupts the app’s launch — and the dopamine flood that follows — to force you to stop and rethink whether this is what you actually want to do, or is just a habit you’d like to break.
Actually sounds useful.
I have this incredible thing that keeps me from doomscrolling on my smartphone. I just don’t do it.
there are countless apps that do the exact same thing and they have been out there for many, many years.
I haven’t seen them changing anything.
EDIT: also google knows this very well and the feature is clearly designed to be as useless as possible and to be ignored by 99% of the users.
The feature is harder to turn off than traditional app timers, too, many of which can simply be ignored. Instead, Pause Point requires a phone restart to turn it off, Google says, which also makes you think before disabling it.
Is that a common feature of third-party apps? I don’t recall hearing about that before, when reading about these types of apps.
If I knew about that beforehand, I’d probably be much less likely turn it on to begin with. If I learned the hard way, I’d likely be dissuaded from ever trying it again & just get one of those other apps. Conversely, the fact that my current phone boots much faster than older ones did makes it not really as off-putting an issue at it once was. It sounds like a major PITA until you realize that.
precisely
