You Don’t Need to Pay for Distraction-Blocking Software
Then you’ve probably heard of Brick, a $59 device that claims to help you block distractions. It’s a good idea, and implemented in a way that makes it easy to get started. But what if you don’t want to buy a chunk of plastic?Good news: the Brick is basically just an NFC chip, not that different from the one in your credit card or passport.
- ▪Then you’ve probably heard of Brick, a $59 device that claims to help you block distractions.
- ▪It’s a good idea, and implemented in a way that makes it easy to get started.
- ▪But what if you don’t want to buy a chunk of plastic?Good news: the Brick is basically just an NFC chip, not that different from the one in your credit card or passport.
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| Original publisher | WIRED |
| Canonical URL | https://www.wired.com/story/you-dont-need-to-pay-for-distraction-blocking-software/ |
| Publication time | Sun, 27 Sep 2026 10:15:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-27T10:20:41.084Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-27T10:20:41.084Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | _oiQlqvOK1cb · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Justin PotGearSep 27, 2026 6:15 AMYou Don’t Need to Pay for Distraction-Blocking SoftwareThese free iOS and Android apps create the physical friction you need to put down your phone.Photo-Illustration: Wired Staff; Getty ImagesCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyWish you looked at your phone less? Then you’ve probably heard of Brick, a $59 device that claims to help you block distractions. You tap your phone against the Brick when you want to avoid distractions—the bundled software stops you from opening whichever apps you’ve decided you need to stop doomscrolling.The idea is to add a physical barrier between you and apps like Instagram—if you want to scroll, you need to physically get up, find the Brick, and tap it.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at WIRED.
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