This dev trained himself to stop doomscrolling with a shock collar — and it worked too well

Like many of us, developer Liam Kloppers struggled with doomscrolling — the endless, mindless scrolling through social media feeds. But instead of relying on willpower or a simple app blocker, Kloppers decided to take an extreme approach: he used a Bluetooth-controlled electric shock dog collar to condition himself out of the habit.

The core idea was to apply classical Pavlovian conditioning. Kloppers bought a dog collar that delivers electric shocks and is controllable via a smartphone app. He reverse-engineered the collar's Bluetooth protocol and wrote a Python control program that connected to a local web server running on his laptop. On his Android phone, he configured MacroDroid — an automation tool — to trigger a web request whenever his personal criteria for "doomscrolling" were met. The server then sent a command to the collar, delivering a shock.

For the test, Kloppers strapped the collar around his leg. Even at the lowest power setting, the shock was so intense that he threw his phone across the room and hesitated to pick it up again. He noted that dogs are clearly much tougher than humans, as the device's low setting was designed for small pets.

The experiment was a success — but perhaps too much of one. Kloppers found himself unable to bring the shock collar back to his leg. He is now considering a less painful alternative: an audible alarm, which has been used effectively in similar projects before.

Kloppers advises anyone struggling with their digital habits to first try less drastic measures, such as using a dedicated social-media-free phone like the Commodore model, before resorting to self-electrocution.