Cat Gatekeeper is a free Chrome extension that interrupts doomscrolling with a cat. Spend too long on sites like YouTube, X, Facebook, Reddit, Threads or Bluesky — an hour by default — and a break screen appears: a cuddly but domineering cat lounges across your view, fidgeting and flicking its tail, until your five-minute break is up. You can adjust the limits, and the extension keeps to itself, collecting no data. Released in late April, it had around 9,000 users within days.
What makes it work is charm, not force. Hard blockers feel like punishment and get switched off; a cute, slightly annoying cat is harder to resent and easier to obey. It is a small lesson in behaviour design: a gentle, likeable bit of friction can change a habit better than a stern wall.
So…:
Where could a charming bit of friction change behaviour better than a hard block?
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