Block Reddit with pushups, and make every check cost a few reps

A Reddit habit is usually lots of short visits, so the fix is to charge for each visit.

In a screen time report, Reddit rarely looks alarming at first. There’s no three-hour binge like on YouTube. There are thirty-five pickups: in line, between tasks, during a build, in the first minute after waking up. Each one is three or four minutes of refreshing and scrolling through the top of a thread. Across a day, those minutes add up to a lot.

That shape changes how you should block it. A daily limit is the wrong tool for a habit made of small checks. What helps is making each check cost something.

What makes Reddit sticky

• There’s always something new. Your subreddits are active around the clock, so pull-to-refresh almost always turns up something you haven’t seen. That’s the unpredictable-reward pattern that makes checking compulsive.
• Comment threads keep going. The post takes ten seconds. The replies, and the replies to those, take ten minutes.
• Notifications bring you back. A reply to your comment, a trending post, a “you might like.” Each one is a reason to open the app.
• It feels like research. Reddit really is where a lot of good answers live. That makes checking “just one thing” easy to justify.

Before you block anything: two free changes

Blocking works much better once the triggers are gone, and these two take about a minute:

1. Turn off Reddit’s notifications in your phone’s settings, apart from direct messages if you really need those. Most of your checks probably start with a notification.
2. Move the app off your home screen. Put it in a folder on the last page, or just leave it in the app library. If you have to search for it, you’re less likely to open it on autopilot.

Lock Reddit on iPhone

1. Open HonorFit and tap Grant Screen Time Access.
2. Go to Choose Apps to Block › Open App Picker, search for Reddit, and tick it. If you read Reddit in a third-party app, tick that one as well.
3. That’s it. Apple’s lock screen now covers Reddit, and HonorFit posts a notification you can tap to go to the rep wheels.

Lock Reddit on Android

1. Allow App usage access and Display over other apps from HonorFit’s Permissions required card. Usage access only tells HonorFit which app is open. It can’t see what you’re reading.
2. Under Settings › Background reliability, set battery usage to Unrestricted so the phone doesn’t stop the blocker.
3. Open Choose Apps to Block. Reddit will probably be near the top under Apps (last 24 hours), since that list is sorted by recent use. Tick it, along with any Reddit client you have installed.

A rate for lots of short visits

With Reddit you’re not trying to fund long sessions. You’re putting a small price on each visit. I’d set it up like this:

• 10 situps = 5 minutes. Situps earn 30 seconds each by default. Five minutes is enough to read one thread properly, and ten situps is enough to make you ask whether you really want to.
• Or 5 pushups = 5 minutes, if you’d rather use the default of one minute per pushup.
• Keep the balance small. Don’t earn twenty minutes in the morning and spend it a few minutes at a time. With a small balance, each check is a new decision, and that’s the whole point.

HonorFit only drains the balance while Reddit is on screen, so a quick check costs you a quick check. A Pro feature that suits Reddit well is Reset at midnight. Unspent minutes don’t carry over, so you can’t save up a Sunday’s worth of scrolling over the week.

Watch for the browser workaround

Reddit is the app people most often switch to the website for. Lock the app and your thumb goes to Safari or Chrome, and reddit.com works fine without an account. HonorFit locks apps, not websites. If you find yourself doing this, add a website limit in your phone’s own Screen Time or Digital Wellbeing settings. Alternatively, sign out of Reddit in your browser, so the web version is less comfortable than earning time for the app.

The honor system applies here too. You could log situps you didn’t do. But the whole reason you’re reading this is that you wanted each check to cost something. Only you can make that true, and no camera would do it for you.

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