Steppin works by forcing you to trade real-life activity for access to your most distracting apps.
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I love to be productive, I love to exercise, but I also love (or at least find myself) getting sucked into marathon Reels-binging sessions on Instagram. Occasionally, I see some videos that teach me something useful that I can employ in the gym, the kitchen, or my personal life, but for the most part, if I’m not careful, I get sucked into a half an hour of watching people perform trendy dances, complain to their front-facing camera about a bad customer service experience, or do ridiculous stunts that involve catching marshmallows in their mouths while running around a football field. None of that is particularly good for me, and watching it over and over stops me from getting things done in my real life. Enter Steppin, a completely free iPhone app that, like plenty of others, blocks access to distracting apps. But unlike others out there, Steppin doesn’t just stop you from firing up Instagram, X, or whatever match-three game is currently holding too much of your time hostage; rather, it gives you the chance to earn app time with those apps back by walking around in the real world. You’re encouraged to get your steps in and you can still enjoy the fun apps—in moderation.
I’ve been using Steppin for a few days and am enjoying it much more than I expected to.
Steppin is very customizable
I first heard about Steppin last week, via a PR alert that came into my inbox. When I read the rundown, I assumed the app would work by locking up all my other apps until I hit a certain amount of steps, which made me nervous. Would that mean I couldn’t look at Instagram at all on a day where I didn’t hit my step goal? If I’m sick in bed, I can’t even bide my time by watching some inane content? Luckily, that’s not how this works.
When you use Steppin, you can trade your steps for minutes on your blocked apps at any time. As your phone or fitness tracker detects steps, they get converted into minutes that you bank and can then convert back into time to unlock your apps. Steppin pulls step data from your iPhone’s built-in pedometer feature, but if you’re wearing an Apple Watch or Fitbit, it pulls from those, too. Essentially, however Apple Health detects your steps, whether from your phone or wearable, Steppin will detect them, too, since it runs on Apple Health data that you grant it permission to access during setup (unfortunately, that means there’s no Android version at the moment).
Credit: Lindsey Ellefson
Let me explain: I have my app configured so that for every 50 steps I physically take, I earn one minute of time on my blocked apps. You can set Steppin to grant you a minute of access per every 25, 50, 100, 250, or 500 steps. My earned time resets weekly, meaning steps I took yesterday still apply to today’s banked time, but you can set it to reset daily or never, too. Crucially, you also get to pick which apps are blocked. To test it out for the first few days, I only added two apps—Instagram and a game called Project Makeover—to my block list. Those are the two that suck up the majority of time I consider wasted in my average day, although I love them both so (so) much. Guess what? I still got to use them whenever I wanted to, as long as I had enough step-earned minutes in my bank.
The app makes you think more about time management
I’ve used app-blockers that actually gray apps out completely during preset times, making them inaccessible unless I override or deactivate the blocker entirely, which defeats the purpose of having a blocker in the first place. Steppin doesn’t work like that. Instead, when I go to open one of the apps on my blocked list, I am shown a screen that says, “Blocked by Steppin. To use [the app], check your available time.” I then hit “Continue,” which brings me to a page within the Steppin app that shows me how many minutes I have available in my bank and allows me to set an unblock duration between one and 30 minutes. From both of those screens, I also have the option to tap “Nevermind,” which closes the app I was attempting to open. Unblock time works for all the apps you have on your blocklist, too, so even though I set it up while trying to open Instagram when setting my duration, I was still able to open Project Makeover, as well.
I really like this approach over the one taken by other app blockers, because it makes allowances for you to actually use the apps you want to use, and doesn’t force you to take an all-or-nothing approach and just disable your blocker altogether. You don’t have to feel shame for trying to get into Instagram; you’re allowed to, just with some limits.
What I really like, though, is having to pre-determine how many minutes I give myself when accessing blocked apps. I actually have to think about how long I want to scroll or play my game, rather than getting sucked into spontaneously losing a few hours of time before I realize it. Since downloading Steppin, I haven’t given myself more than five minutes at one time. I don’t need to play Project Makeover for longer than five minutes and having to set a time limit forces me to think about that. When a friend DMs me a funny meme on Instagram, I only set one minute for myself to open it, view it, and respond. Before Steppin, that would have led to at least 10 minutes of me scrolling through other memes, which is what Instagram wants me to do (and, honestly, what I kind of want to do, too). But with this app, I can still engage, then get back to whatever I was doing before. Once your time is up, that same “Blocked by Steppin” screen pops up and you have the option to extend your time or exit.
Basically, even though I have plenty of minutes built up in my bank, I’ve still actively elected not to spend as much time on my blocked apps. Even seeing the Steppin screen pop up reminds me that I don’t really need to be using that app anymore, which is a benefit in itself.
There is an element of gamification at play
Steppin incorporates streaks, so every day you use it, you add another day to your streak. For me, that’s really useful because I am a streak-motivated kind of person. Challenging myself to add another day compels me to keep going. You undo your streak by removing an app from your blocked list or changing your preferences around how many steps give you a minute of app access or how long your banked minutes last before resetting.
Credit: Lindsey Ellefson
This could be a detriment for some, since you might not appreciate losing a streak because you’re configuring the settings in a way that works best for you, or in the cast that you might even need unfettered access to an app for some reason. Still, if streaks or gamification are things that keep you on track, it’s a nice feature.
The app is going to include more options in the future
I chatted with Paul English, Steppin’s founder (who is also the co-founder of travel search engine Kayak), about how the app came about and what its future looks like. He explained that he came up with the idea while on vacation with his family, noticing that no one was looking at their phones while they walked around, but as soon as they got into a car to travel to a farther destination, everyone was glued to their screens. A few months later, Steppin was born, but though it launched just three weeks ago, English has already made some changes and is planning more for the future. The streaks feature, for instance, was only added in the last few days after he got feedback from users who said they’d like to see something like that.
An Android app is also already in development and should be here in “weeks, not months.” But Steppin could include a lot more than just new versions or streaks over time. English is considering options that allow you to earn minutes based on Apple Health metrics besides walking, to self-report behaviors that can earn you minutes (like, “how many minutes did you spend reading on your Kindle today?”), or even to get more access to social media apps in exchange for spending some of that time watching pre-selected “educational videos.”
Feedback and actual user data determines a lot about what happens to Steppin, so for now, I’m just using it every day to do my part. English explains he and his team keep tabs on how the app is used: “We’re looking at stats now about how much people are ‘cheating’ [by breaking their streaks] now versus before we added that feature, and it’s definitely less.” That sort of data helps English and his team figure out what future updates will include and while all of that is up in the air, the forthcoming Android addition is a sure thing.
Overall, I like this app a lot more than I thought I would, just because it’s so customizable. If you’re someone who doesn’t get a lot of time to walk in the day, you can use the app on its lowest settings, trading 25 steps for a minute of app time, and still get the benefits. It’s definitely something you still need to have some self-restraint to use, since you pick the apps that go on your block list and have a number of options for accessing them or overriding Steppin’s control, but it provides all the tools you need to make better decisions.
I’m looking forward to the day when, say, my minutes of reading or other forms of exercise count toward my banked minutes, depending on which direction English and his team take with future updates, but for now, I’m enjoying using it as-is. I already get plenty of steps in on a daily basis, but this has certainly encouraged me to do more. What else am I gonna do? Scroll Instagram?
