[thr0wawayf00]

I've had a really hard time finding a balance with dating apps, they're easily my most addictive phone habit. I recently hard-deleted all of my dating app accounts to take an extended break.

Before that, I tried several different things to modify my dating app behavior:

I would set Screen Time in iOS and give myself a one hour limit per day with a separate Screen Time password. This worked OK but it was still too easy to keep requesting 15 more minutes at a time. To deal with this, I would delete the app from my phone when I reached my time limit since they're way too easy to access from the iOS app tray and the app icon is a major trigger for me.

The major thing that helped was setting a month-on month-off schedule. I would pay for a premium account for one month only and cancel the subscription right after purchase and get to inbox zero on my app when it was time to turn the app off.

At the end of the month on, I would put my profile into hidden mode so I know that I won't get new matches in my month off, and I would also delete all stale matches. I would keep all active matches and just talk to them until we either met or went silent and then I would delete them. Keeping my inbox as clean as possible really reduced temptation.