It is heartsickening that this is the result of current social media implementation. As others have mentioned, it is largely caused by this attention economy (as I've heard Tristan Harris of https://www.humanetech.com/ call it) - where the apps most used today are made to be addictive and consume our attention as much as possible.
I have been working on a more intimate, less addictive, social media and messaging application that I hope can be part of a trend of new apps that help solve this problem. I believe one of the features in current apps that makes them so addictive, for teens especially, is the endless stream of content they have access to - they can view hours and hours of videos from celebrities they don't personally know, content creators they have never met, brands, etc. If we can scale back the endless stream of content (which leads to doom-scrolling), that might be one approach to helping limit screen time without sacrificing the meaningful connection to friends and family that social media enables.
If you click the "Download Omnii Beta" button on the website, it should take you to the Google Play Store listing and allow you to download the Beta version of the app.
One restriction at the moment is that the app is closed to the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and India. If you do not reside in one of the listed countries, shoot me an email with the country you live in and I can see if we can open up the Beta to your country.
Hey icy, the issue you raise about Signal not being decentralized, I think, is a valid one.
You should check out a decentralized messaging and social media app I have been working on - Omnii.
Omnii allows each user to manage their encryption keys, and all data exists in a decentralized manner - only on endpoints (users' phones), and not on a backend.
I have been working on a more intimate, less addictive, social media and messaging application that I hope can be part of a trend of new apps that help solve this problem. I believe one of the features in current apps that makes them so addictive, for teens especially, is the endless stream of content they have access to - they can view hours and hours of videos from celebrities they don't personally know, content creators they have never met, brands, etc. If we can scale back the endless stream of content (which leads to doom-scrolling), that might be one approach to helping limit screen time without sacrificing the meaningful connection to friends and family that social media enables.