What we know and don’t

What the research supports

A short pause with an easy way out

Several studies of other tools have tested a short pause shown when an app is opened. In them, people opened the app less often, or used it less, while the pause was on.

One followed the logs of 1,039 people using an app called one sec, which adds a pause with an option not to open the app. Another was a Danish government field trial with 269 teenagers, which used pop-ups that asked them to wait or to plan.

These are results across the people studied. They do not say what will happen for any one person. Accounts of the research disagree about which part of such a pause does the most work. Porch Moth’s pause is a short wait, then a large “I’m out” button.

Most people cut down, and few stop

The studies measure people using apps less, not giving them up. No source we found gives a rate for stopping scrolling altogether.

In one trial of 619 people, a week of using the phone an hour less each day did about as well, four months later, as a week of not using it at all.

So Porch Moth lets you aim to cut down. You do not have to stop.

Slips are normal

In a study of a seven-day break from social media, more than half of the people slipped at least once. In the original study of how habits form, missing one day did not set the habit back.

About “66 days”

Porch Moth marks your 66th day with a win in it. The number comes from research on how long a new habit takes to form.

One analysis pooled 20 studies. Its middle figure, the median, was 59 to 66 days. Its mean was longer, 106 to 154 days. Individual people ranged from 4 days to 335.

So 66 days is an average with a very wide range. It is not a promise, and it is not a finish line.

What it does not support

That the change lasts by itself

In the one sec study, attempts to open the apps fell and then levelled off after about three weeks. They stayed at the lower level while the pause was on. The study had no comparison group, the people in it had chosen the app themselves, and it did not measure what happens once the pause is switched off.

In other trials, when a block or a time limit ended, use went back up. Almost nothing is known beyond six months.

That a streak or a mascot helps with scrolling

The research on streaks comes from other products and other habits, and much of it is one company’s own unaudited figures. How Morris speaks is reasoning, not a tested result. Both are our attempt to carry people past the first three weeks. That part of Porch Moth is a bet.

That doing something else replaces scrolling

The evidence here is thin. Porch Moth’s “instead” moves are optional.

Anything about health

Nothing on this page is a claim about mood, sleep or health.

Porch Moth is a habit tool. It does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition.

What nobody knows yet

Whether Porch Moth works

Nobody has tested Porch Moth itself on real people yet. Every finding above comes from other tools, delivered in other ways. There is no success rate for Porch Moth, so none is shown.

How long you spend in any app

Porch Moth cannot see how long you spend in any app. It knows only that its own pages were opened and what you chose there. Its counts are counts of those choices, not of time. It sees nothing of an app you have not set a pause up for.

What would change our mind

• A fair test of Porch Moth on real people that showed no fall in how often they open the apps they chose.
• Signs that the streak, the counts or Morris lead people to open apps more often, or to feel worse.
• New research that overturns the studies above.

Any of these would change our mind, and this page with it.