ScreenLing: Break the Scroll

Cliqueraft

About this app

You know the scroll where you are not really choosing any more. Twenty minutes gone, nothing to show for it, thumb still moving.

ScreenLing waits for exactly that moment. Then a small creature turns up on your screen.

It is called a linglet. It is about the size of your thumb, it is mildly surprised to be there, and you can poke it, throw it, or tickle it until it laughs. After a few seconds you get two buttons: keep scrolling, or leave. Both are fine. Nobody is keeping score.

Not another blocker

Most screen time apps work by punishment. Grey lock screens. Broken streaks. A number at bedtime that is supposed to make you feel bad about your day.

ScreenLing does none of that.

• No streaks to break
• No daily verdict, no score, no number telling you how you did
• No comparisons to yesterday, to a goal, or to other people
• Nothing is ever blocked — you can always carry on
• The interruption is a small gift, not a penalty

It notices how you scroll, not just how long

A timer cannot tell reading from scrolling. ScreenLing can. When you are actually reading something, your scrolling is uneven and full of pauses. The scrolling you did not decide to do is flat and steady — and that is the only thing ScreenLing looks for. So it stays out of your way while you are reading, and turns up when you have gone somewhere else.

Eight creatures, and you pick who comes

Snib breathes and blinks. Pom is very fuzzy. Wobbler leans. Drifter floats with its eyes shut. Nib bounces. Moss is a fuzzy mound. Blink is mostly eye and looks right at you. Loaf settles and sighs.

One of them turns up whenever ScreenLing notices. You choose which one, how readily it appears, and which apps it watches. Knowing who is coming costs you nothing — the surprise is when.

Your business stays yours

• ScreenLing only watches the apps you put on the list. Not your keyboard, not your bank, not your messages.
• It cannot read what is on your screen — not the words, not the pictures. That is switched off entirely, not merely promised.
• Nothing it notices leaves your phone. No account, no sign-in, no upload.

To sense how you are scrolling rather than merely how long, ScreenLing uses Android's accessibility service. It receives scroll events only from the apps you select, uses them only to feel the rhythm of your scrolling, and keeps everything on your device. You can decline it: ScreenLing then works from minutes in an app alone, which is blunter and wrong more often.

What’s new

The first ScreenLing.

Eight linglets live in here: Snib, Pom, Wobbler, Drifter, Nib, Moss, Blink and Loaf. Pick who turns up, choose which apps ScreenLing watches, and get on with your day.

When your scrolling goes flat, one of them arrives. Play with it, then keep scrolling or leave. Both are real choices.