why?
Open apps on purpose.
You probably did not decide to spend twenty minutes on Instagram. You just opened it. Maybe you wanted to find something, maybe you wanted to reply to someone, maybe there was no reason at all. why? puts one question in between.
Your thumb opened it. Did you?
Opening an app has become almost too easy to notice. Your thumb knows where everything is, and sometimes it gets there before you do. So when you open one of the apps you chose, why? asks what you came for. Have a reason? Go in. Don’t? Maybe don’t.
There is no right answer
“Kill time” is a reason. “I don’t know” is a reason. The point is not to make every minute productive. The point is to notice that you are making a choice, because once an app is open the choice has mostly been made for you. There is always another post, another video, another thing to tap.
Three answers you can actually give
“Post” and “reply” are aims. Half a second before a scroll, nobody is doing either. So the three offered are the ones anyone can pick standing at the door, and each app gets its own: Instagram is where the messages are, YouTube is where you watch something you did not come looking for. You can rewrite all three.
“I don’t know” is a real answer
It is on every app on purpose, it is usually the true one, and picking it opens the app like any other. There is nothing to feel bad about and nothing to confess. Reading it and recognising yourself is already the whole intervention.
Changed minds is the only score
Not how many hours you wasted, not how disciplined you were, not how long your streak is. Just the times a habit started and you caught it. Sometimes you will answer and keep going. Sometimes you will read the question and realise you did not actually want to open the app. Those are changed minds, and they are the only number counted.
Nothing leaves your device
No account, no sign-up, no ads, no tracking. why? cannot even read which apps you picked: iOS hands it sealed tokens rather than names, and what you answer never leaves your phone. Buying Pro is the only thing that talks to anything, and all it says is that you bought it.