Okay. You looked. Now close the tab.

The 11pm check

It is always the same shape. You are not even doing anything. You are half watching something, the phone is already in your hand, and thirty seconds later you are four months deep in a grid you promised yourself you were finished with.

Nobody plans this. It is about the most reflexive thing there is, which is exactly why telling yourself to stop does not work. You are not making a decision at eleven at night. You are following a path your thumb already knows.

The check itself is not really the problem. The problem is that there is nothing on the other side of it. You look, you feel slightly worse, and then you are just sitting there holding a phone.

What actually helps

Not willpower. The thing that works has to be easier than the thing you are trying not to do.

Put the phone somewhere with a lid. Another room does not work, you will simply go and get it. You want somewhere that adds four seconds of friction and a small amount of embarrassment.

Have the next thing already open. The scroll wins when nothing is competing for the slot. A show queued up, a book face down on the arm of the chair, anything at all that got there first.

Write it down somewhere that is not a drafts folder. A lot of the urge is wanting to say something. Say it on paper, where it cannot be sent at one in the morning.

Give it a time limit rather than a ban. Ten deliberate minutes on a Sunday beats six ambushes a week, and you will actually keep to it.

None of that is advice from anyone qualified to give advice. It is just what seems to work. If what you are really after is the technical answer about who can see what, that is a different question and it has an honest answer in can someone see you viewed their profile.

Everything below is in service of one of those four. That is the whole organizing principle.