The 7-Day Write-Before-You-Scroll Study
Can one short writing ritual make journaling more consistent and reduce time lost to distracting apps? We are collecting the data openly instead of pretending we already know.
By Journal Lock ResearchReviewed under our editorial and research policy
Research status
Protocol locked. Recruitment is open.
Journal Lock will publish the first aggregate report after at least 100 participants complete all seven check-ins. Until then, this page reports no efficacy claim. The protocol, outcome definitions, limitations, and publication threshold are public in advance so the conclusion cannot be rewritten around the data.
Participate
Run the experiment on yourself.
Start with an honest baseline. For seven days, write before you scroll and complete one numeric check-in. Your progress stays in this browser. Anonymous study events contain no prose, app names, account identity, email, or demographic profile.
Research question
What changes during seven days of writing before scrolling?
This exploratory study tests whether participants report more consistent journaling and fewer minutes in self-selected distracting apps during a seven-day intervention. It also records writing volume and the daily urge to scroll.
Journaling consistency
The share of study days on which a participant writes before opening a distracting app.
Distracting-app time
Self-reported daily minutes compared with the participant’s pre-study baseline.
Writing output
The total number of words written during the seven-day protocol—not the words themselves.
Urge to scroll
A simple daily one-to-five rating used to observe direction, not diagnose behavior.
The public protocol
- Before day one, estimate average daily minutes in the distracting apps you plan to interrupt.
- Record how many days you journaled during the previous week.
- Choose a daily writing threshold of 5, 25, or 50 words.
- For seven consecutive days, write before opening a selected distracting app.
- Once each day, record whether you wrote first, distracting-app minutes, words written, and urge to scroll.
- Complete all seven check-ins to enter the aggregate analysis.
Analysis plan
The primary outcome is within-participant change in self-reported distracting-app minutes relative to baseline. The second primary outcome is the proportion of days completed with writing before scrolling. We will report medians and interquartile ranges, not only averages, because behavior data is often skewed.
We will also report completion rate, word-goal subgroup results, and the distribution of urge-to-scroll ratings. Incomplete seven-day protocols will appear in recruitment and attrition totals but will not be included in the completed-participant outcome analysis.
What this study cannot prove
This is an exploratory, self-selected, self-reported study without a randomized control group. It can identify patterns worth testing; it cannot establish that Journal Lock caused a clinical or psychological outcome. Participants know the study goal, estimates may be imprecise, and people who finish seven days may differ from those who do not.
Any future report will state these limitations beside the results. We will not describe association as causation or generalize beyond the participating sample.
Privacy and data handling
The study collects numeric baseline and check-in fields only. Detailed progress is stored locally in the participant's browser. Anonymous analytics events are used to calculate aggregate results. Journal text, selected app names, names, emails, account IDs, and demographic details are not requested by the study interface.
Participation is voluntary and separate from using Journal Lock. Learn more in the Privacy Policy.
Why publish the protocol first?
Evidence should be harder to manipulate than marketing copy.
Locking the question, measures, threshold, and limitations before the result creates a record competitors can copy stylistically—but not substantively. The resulting dataset will come from real participants following this exact protocol.