In a twist that would make Alanis Morissette rewrite her definition of irony, humans have reached a new technological milestone: we’re now downloading apps to stop us from using other apps. It’s like hiring an arsonist to fight fires or asking your drug dealer for rehab advice on how to quit drugs. And somehow, inexplicably, a beer company is leading the charge.
Yes, the same species that spent billions of dollars creating infinitely scrollable feeds of dopamine-triggering content has now decided that maybe—just maybe—being perpetually stimulated isn’t working out so well. Enter “The Boring Mode,” an app developed not by Apple, Google, or some Silicon Valley wellness startup, but by Heineken—a company whose primary business is selling liquid that makes you temporarily stupider1.
The Boring Mode works by essentially turning your $1,200 iPhone into a 2005-era flip phone2. With “one swipe,” it disables all your social and work apps, blocking notifications, emails, and anything else that might connect you to the digital hellscape we call modern life. The goal? To help you focus on the horrifying reality directly in front of you: other humans.
According to Dr. Wilhelm Schatzsucher, Director of the Institute for Digital Anthropology and Obvious Conclusions, “We’ve reached the point where humans need technology to protect them from the technology that was supposed to improve their lives in the first place. It’s like needing a special fork that prevents you from eating too much cake, when you could just… not eat so much cake.”
The Science of Being Extremely Online
Research that absolutely exists and wasn’t just made up for this article shows that 82% of young people report being more easily distracted during hours when they use social apps frequently3. In related news, water is wet and falling from great heights can lead to injury.
“What was striking,” explains researcher Teun Siebers from the University of Amsterdam, apparently unaware of how unstrikingly obvious his findings are, “was that most young people keep looking at their phones quite briefly for an update from one of their social channels and then keep putting them away. That’s not good news.”
Not good news indeed, especially for the billions of dollars invested in keeping our eyeballs glued to screens. The average Gen Z user now checks their phone approximately 42,069 times per day, spending roughly 9 hours refreshing content that makes them feel simultaneously entertained and dead inside.
A comprehensive study from the Nature Journal of Things We Already Knew found that “digital media increases boredom through dividing attention, elevating desired level of engagement, reducing sense of meaning, heightening opportunity costs, and serving as an ineffective boredom coping strategy.”4 In simpler terms: your phone is making you more bored, not less, and you keep using it because you’re bored, creating a feedback loop of existential emptiness that would make Nietzsche reach for a Heineken.
The Corporate Angle: Big Beer Disrupts Big Tech
What’s truly remarkable is that Heineken—yes, the people who sell alcohol—has positioned itself as a champion of digital wellness5. Their Boring Mode app was unveiled at the Amsterdam Dance Event, where Scottish DJ Barry Can’t Swim (who apparently can spin) praised the initiative, saying, “Without phones, the energy is definitely different—people are more connected on the dancefloor.”6
This raises important questions: Why is a beer company suddenly concerned about our digital well-being? And why is a DJ named after his inability to swim qualified to comment on this?
“Heineken isn’t actually interested in reducing phone addiction,” explains tech ethicist Dr. Serena Truthteller. “They’ve simply recognized that people staring at their phones drink less beer. Every minute you spend scrolling through Instagram is a minute you’re not holding a Heineken.”
Indeed, Heineken’s own marketing materials reveal the true motivation: “The Boring Phone campaign exemplifies the culture pulse strategy… at its core was a compelling insight: smartphones are too interesting for social life.” Translation: phones are cutting into drinking time, and that’s bad for business.
The campaign has been wildly successful, generating 9.5 billion impressions—the highest in Heineken’s history. This begs the question: If an app designed to reduce screen time becomes a viral sensation that increases screen time, is it still accomplishing its goal, or has it become the very monster it sought to destroy?
The Boring User Experience
Early adopters of boring technology report mixed results. Chadwick Mindfulness, a 27-year-old content creator, installed The Boring Mode after realizing he was spending 18 hours a day creating content about mindfulness without ever actually being mindful.
“It changed my life,” Chadwick claims. “After activating Boring Mode, I was suddenly present with my thoughts for the first time in years. Within minutes, I realized I hate all my friends, my apartment smells weird, and I’ve forgotten how to read books. I immediately deactivated it and went back to TikTok.”
Emily Awareness, a 32-year-old digital detox consultant who charges $200 an hour to teach people how to put down their phones, admits she installed seven different boring apps on her device. “I use Forest to grow virtual trees when I’m not using my phone, Freedom to block distracting websites, AppDetox to limit my app usage, and four others I can’t remember. I spend about three hours a day configuring my boring apps, which has really cut into my social media time.”
Meanwhile, 63-year-old Japanese retiree Haruto Simplicity created his own boring app called TwinCalc—a calculator app that simply puts two calculators side by side. “I saw a market gap,” Haruto explains, “People were getting too distracted by having only one calculator. Now they can calculate two things at once and get back to their lives twice as fast.”
The Boring Revolution Escalates
As boring technology gains traction, more extreme solutions are emerging. Google recently announced “LifeBlock™,” an app that automatically shuts down your phone whenever you appear to be enjoying it too much. “Our algorithms can detect smiling, laughing, or any signs of dopamine release,” explains Google’s Chief Boredom Officer. “When that happens, LifeBlock immediately displays a photo of your disappointed grandparents and turns off your device.”
Apple’s response, “iDreariness,” takes a different approach by gradually desaturating your screen over time until everything appears in grayscale7. “Studies show that eliminating colors makes your phone less appealing,” explains Apple CEO Tim Cook, who definitely said this. “By slowly removing joy from your visual experience, we help you realize that maybe there’s more to life than staring at this rectangle.”
The most extreme solution comes from tech startup BoredBox, which sells a $499 wooden box with a timer lock. “You put your phone in the box, set the timer for however long you want to experience reality, and walk away,” explains BoredBox founder Maximilian Disconnection. “It’s literally just a box with a lock, but we’ve raised $50 million in venture capital because we put ‘AI-enhanced’ in our pitch deck.”
The military has even developed “EMP Lite,” a personal electromagnetic pulse generator that temporarily disables all electronic devices within a 10-foot radius. “It’s perfectly safe,” claims General Disconnection (no relation to Maximilian). “Sure, it might erase your credit cards and pacemaker, but think about the quality time you’ll have with your family!”
The University of Boredom
Academic institutions are also diving into the lucrative field of boredom studies. Harvard University recently opened its Center for Digital Ennui, where researchers study how to make people less interested in things they enjoy.
“We’ve discovered that boredom is actually essential for human creativity and self-reflection,” explains Dr. Yawnley Dullman, who holds the prestigious Martha Stewart Chair of Doing Nothing in Particular. “Before smartphones, people would routinely experience up to 37 minutes of boredom per day, during which they might have an original thought or notice something about their surroundings. Today, that number is down to 3.2 seconds—just long enough to reach for your phone.”
The center’s most controversial paper, “The Ethics of Forced Boredom,” argues that technology companies have a moral obligation to make their products less engaging. “We’re essentially proposing that Netflix should occasionally just play footage of paint drying,” Dr. Dullman explains. “Or that Instagram should randomly replace every fifth photo with a beige rectangle.”
The Ironic Twist
The ultimate irony in this whole boring saga is that boring apps themselves have become addictive. Users report checking their “digital wellness” stats compulsively, competing with friends for who can spend the least time on their phone, and posting screenshots of their screen time reports to prove their moral superiority.
“I spend about four hours a day monitoring and adjusting my boring apps,” admits reformed social media addict Taylor Phoneless. “I’ve joined three different Discord servers where we discuss strategies for using our phones less. I’m constantly getting notifications from my boredom apps reminding me not to look at notifications.”
And here’s where we reach the philosophical crux of the matter: In our desperate attempt to reclaim our attention from technology, we’ve simply created a new technology to capture that attention. The snake continues to eat its tail, the wheel continues to turn, and humans continue to seek technological solutions to problems created by technology.
Perhaps there’s something profound about needing a beer company to remind us how to be human. After all, alcohol—humanity’s original attention modification technology—has been helping people ignore their problems and focus on socializing for thousands of years. Maybe Heineken understands something about human nature that Silicon Valley has forgotten.
Or maybe—just maybe—this is all an elaborate marketing ploy to sell more beer by convincing people to put down their phones and pick up a bottle instead.
As the ancient philosopher Socrates definitely said, “The unexamined notification is not worth swiping.”
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References
- https://apps.apple.com/pl/app/the-boring-mode/id6479634148 ↩︎
- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.heineken.theboringmode ↩︎
- https://www.uva.nl/shared-content/uva/en/news/news/2024/04/tired-and-distracted-research-confirms-impact-of-social-apps-on-young-people.html ↩︎
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-024-00155-9 ↩︎
- https://www.theheinekencompany.com/newsroom/heineken-boring-phone-turning-a-boring-phone-into-a-global-cultural-phenomenon/ ↩︎
- https://www.greenbot.com/boring-mode-app/ ↩︎
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10498313/ ↩︎
