In 2009, Apple coined a catchy slogan: “There’s an app for just about anything.” The original commercial is a time capsule from the early years—when the idea that smartphones could be used in every corner of life read more as a promise than a threat.

Now we have apps to help us stop using apps. The deterrents are creative. Some apps slow down how quickly we can open others; some block everything except calls and texts until we enter a specific password; some prompt us to reflect on a mantra or take deep, meditative breaths before scrolling on. One shows a little animated tree growing—a tree that dies if we open Instagram.

If an app for everything was prophecy, this is its dark fulfillment.

I tried these app-restricting apps for years in an attempt to kick my smartphone addiction. Looking at my phone all the time didn’t make me happy, but I couldn’t seem to stop. I would set a daily limit for my phone usage, and then ignore the notifications telling me I’d reached it. Whatever the barriers, I could always override them or change their settings. Looking at my phone was ultimately my decision; I had to make the right one a thousand times a day.

My friends and I were born in the aughts, the first children of the smartphone age. Recent years have seen a flood of advocacy and warnings about the effects smartphones have on kids, and a scramble for school policies to restrict their use. But they came too late for my generation. Gone are our childhood years, when schools and family could easily steer our choices. We’re more addicted than anyone, and there’s no one to take our phones away but us.

Jonathan Haidt: End the phone-based childhood now

Most of us realize that our attention span is shot and our screen time is out of control—that the ability to do anything too often leaves us doing nothing at