Why adding friction back into your life through boycotts, spending limits, and deleted apps might be the mental health intervention we all need.
Table of contents
Open Table of contents
The case for making your life harder (on purpose)
Look, I know this sounds backwards. We’re supposed to be making things easier, right? Streamlining. Optimizing. One-click everything. But hear me out on this one.
Everyone’s boycotting stuff right now—Amazon, Target, TikTok, you name it. And yeah, there’s politics involved (which I happen to agree with), but there’s something bigger happening here that nobody’s talking about: we’re accidentally detoxing from convenience addiction.
And honestly? It might be the best thing we’ve done for ourselves in years.
We’ve optimized ourselves into zombies
We’ve built a world that’s too easy. Everything arrives in two days. Every question gets answered instantly. Every idle moment gets filled with algorithmically-selected dopamine hits. We’ve trained ourselves to expect immediate everything, and now we can’t handle waiting for… anything.
Can’t be bored for five seconds in line at the grocery store without pulling out our phones. Can’t research anything without asking an LLM first (guilty). Can’t even order something online without getting mad if it takes more than 48 hours to arrive.
We’re out here with the attention spans of goldfish, and then we wonder why nobody can focus anymore. The world’s working exactly as designed, folks. We just didn’t realize the design included making us miserable.
My accidental experiment in friction
Here’s my confession: I quit social media entirely. Cold turkey. Gone.
Was it easy? Absolutely not. Took about two months before people finally remembered I wasn’t scrolling anymore. Now they text me Instagram posts or TikTok videos, and I have to view them in the web browser like some kind of caveman. And oh boy, Uncle Meta and the Chinese algorithms do NOT like that. They make it as painful as possible—you know, to “encourage” you to download the app.
The friction almost worked. I almost caved multiple times.
But here’s the thing: I’m out now, and my brain is thanking me.
Instead of doom scrolling, I’m reading. Writing these posts. Working on dev projects. Actually getting better at things I care about. Do I still spend too much time on my phone? Sure. But now it’s RSS feeds and YouTube—watching some guy implement an MCP server and accidentally break his entire digital life. Learning why giving AI access to your credit card numbers is a spectacularly bad idea. You know, educational content that makes me slightly paranoid but more competent.
I don’t miss social media at all. When I want to talk to someone, I actually call or text them now. Wild concept, I know. And my brain isn’t constantly upset about things I can’t control or comparing my life to someone’s carefully curated highlight reel. It’s been fantastic.
The accidental Amazon detox
Want another friction win? Privacy.com cards.
I set up virtual cards with spending limits for Amazon and other online stores we use. Game changer. No more mystery packages showing up on the kitchen table where they sit for days because nobody remembers what they ordered or why they ordered it at 2am while scrolling. (Just me? Okay.)
The spending limits create just enough friction to make me think: “Do I actually need this, or did a targeted ad just convince me I need it?” Spoiler alert: it’s usually the ad.
And speaking of buying stuff we don’t need: Maybe this year buy less for Christmas. I know my kids forget what they got after a week anyway. Is going on a trip or creating an experience together better? Hell yeah. They’ll remember the time you went somewhere or did something way longer than they’ll remember toy number 47 that’s currently buried under their bed.
Remember Dudley Dursley getting 36 presents and being upset because it was two fewer than last year? Yeah, nobody needs to raise that kid. If your child is counting presents and complaining about the total, we’ve all failed somewhere along the way.
Plus, experiences don’t create clutter. Win-win.
The dad angle nobody’s talking about
Being a parent changed everything about this for me.
I’ve got a son and daughter who are watching how I interact with the world. And I want them to learn that things worth having require work. I want them to experience the world without an algorithm deciding what they should think about next. I want them to know what it feels like to be bored so they can learn to create their own entertainment.
Which means I have to model that behavior. Can’t tell them to put their screens down while I’m doom scrolling Twitter. Can’t teach them patience while refreshing my Amazon tracking every five minutes.
It’s easier said than done, but it’s worth the effort. So I pick up books more than my phone now. I let myself be bored instead of filling every nanosecond with content. I’m trying to teach them (and myself) that friction isn’t always the enemy.
My dad wasn’t perfect—plenty of things he could’ve done better. But he taught me to work hard and do things right the first time so you don’t have to go back and do them again. The world isn’t going to hand you anything. Those algorithms are designed to make life easy, and your brain loves that. But here’s the problem: if you never lift the weight, you’ll never get stronger.
The AI paradox
Here’s where it gets interesting with AI tools. Yes, offload the stuff you hate to AI. The tedious grunt work that drains your soul. But focus your human energy on what you love and want to get better at. Don’t let AI do everything, or you won’t be strong at anything.
We need to lift some weights ourselves, you know?
Let’s make this harder (together)
Boycotting is honestly the best way to show anyone you mean business. Your money talks louder than your tweets ever will. Is it hard? Yes. Does it work? Also yes.
But beyond boycotts, I think we all need to add more friction back into our lives. Whether that’s:
- Deleting social media apps (join me in the stone age)
- Adding spending limits to online stores
- Turning off notifications
- Picking up a book instead of your phone
- Letting yourself be bored for five minutes
- Actually calling people instead of consuming their content
The algorithms want you comfortable and clicking. But comfort isn’t strength. Friction builds resilience.
So if you’re feeling the pull to boycott something, add limits to something, or cut something out entirely? Do it. Your brain will thank you. Your kids will learn from it. And you might just find that the thing you thought you couldn’t live without was actually making you miserable the whole time.
There’s strength in numbers, so here’s the call to action: Let’s make our lives a little harder, on purpose, together.
Take luck out there. 🏆