Fig. 00 — Attention flight recorder
The feedstopshere.
ShortStop puts a Stop between you and the scroll: a wait, a decision, a limit. Free and private.
Fig. 01 — The infinite feed
The feedhas nobottom.
Your feed was built without a bottom. Every swipe is a tiny reward, and there is always one more. An hour disappears, and you never decided to spend it.
“Behavioral cocaine.”
Aza Raskin, designer of infinite scroll · BBC Panorama, 2018
∞ — No bottom
Fig. 02 — The Stop
Addfriction.
Put a Stop on a site and it makes you wait before it opens. A small time sacrifice instead of instant dopamine. Then you choose: enter, enter for a limited time, or close the tab.
Search Youtube
"Was it worth it last time?"
Customise
Useful Links
- Reading list
- Today’s tasks
- Workout plan
- A Time sacrificeinstead of instant dopamine
- B Then you chooseenter, limited time, or close
- C Your own wordsa reminder you chose
Fig. 02 · B — Hurdles
Want itharder?
Add a hurdle before Enter works: math, typing, a puzzle or a memory game.
01 Math
02 Typing
03 Puzzle
04 Dual n-back
Fig. 03 — The budget
1 hour.40 shorts.
Limits give every site a budget, like an hour a day on YouTube, or 40 Shorts or Reels. A bar shows what is left. At zero, the feed is done.
Limits for Shorts/Reels:
YouTube Shorts
allow 40 shorts per day
31 left
Limits for any Url:
youtube.com Entire Domain
allow 1 hour per day
41m 7s left
- A By the clipShorts, Reels and TikTok
- B Any URLa site, a page or a homepage
Fig. 04 — The clean-up
The hooks,removed.
For many people, this alone is the reason to get ShortStop. It strips the most addictive parts out of YouTube and X: the Shorts, the home button that pulls you back into the feed, the home feed. And the logo becomes a countdown of your time left.
Youtube Modifications
Fig. 05 — Limit reached
Two excusesa day.
When time’s up, the feed stops. But no two days are the same, so you get two excuses a day. Use one, pick how long, and confirm it. ShortStop doesn’t take the choice away. It just makes you decide.
A guardrail, not a prison.
You’ve reached your limit of:
“I have a good excuse to close this popup”
Use one of 2 excuses left today- A Your limit1 hr a day on youtube.com
- B 2 excuses a daythe button works: spend both
Fig. 06 — The wall
Closethe gaps.
ShortStop is a wall around your attention, so close the gaps.
1 Other browsers
Open
One free ProPro account syncs your rules to every browser.
2 Private windows
Open
Let it run in private windows, too.
3 Adult sites
Open
The blacklist blocks any site, including hundreds of thousands of adult sites.
4 Apps & games
Open
The desktop companion app guards your apps and games.
Fig. 07 — The repair
Win the warfor yourattention.
Some days the wall still cracks. You patch it and go again.
Short Stop
Free · Privacy-first · No tracking
The desktop companion app for Windows and macOS is in preview.
