Threads is the newest app on this list, and the one whose pull is most tangled up with a different app entirely. It launched tied directly to Instagram accounts, and for a lot of people it still functions less like a separate habit and more like an extension of one — which means a plan to block "just Threads" can miss most of what's actually going on.
What actually makes Threads hard to close
The core mechanic is close to X's — a scrolling, largely text-based timeline mixing people you follow with algorithmically recommended posts — but the identity layer changes the psychology of it. Because your Threads presence is tied to your Instagram one, checking Threads and checking Instagram can feel like the same errand rather than two separate decisions, which makes it easy to open one while telling yourself you're "just checking the other." The timeline itself, like most recommendation-driven feeds, has no natural stopping point, and being new enough that its algorithm is still being tuned means the mix of content can shift noticeably week to week — enough novelty that old habits of "I've seen everything already" don't reliably kick in the way they might on a more familiar feed.
The built-in iPhone route, and where it gives way
iOS Screen Time can set an App Limit on Threads specifically, separate from Instagram's own limit — which sounds like a clean solution until you notice it only restricts the Threads app icon itself, not the underlying account or notifications feeding into it. Reach the limit and, as with any app, a single "Ignore Limit for Today" button clears it, gated only by a Screen Time passcode you set and know yourself. Even fully respected, a Threads-only limit does nothing about Instagram running unrestricted alongside it.
The built-in Android route, and where it gives way
Digital Wellbeing treats Threads as its own app for timer purposes too, with the same greyed-out icon and one-tap "add more time" option the moment the limit hits. The same gap applies: a Threads timer says nothing about Instagram, and the whole Digital Wellbeing system remains adjustable or removable from Settings at any point by the same person it's meant to be restraining.
What changes when the toll is three questions
Mr. Grummel treats each app as its own toll — opening Threads costs three questions, and opening Instagram costs a separate set, which matters exactly because the two are so easy to blur into each other. A question doesn't care which app it's guarding; it costs the same few minutes of real thought whether you're reaching for Threads specifically or drifting there from Instagram without quite deciding to. That's enough to interrupt the "just checking the other one too" reflex that a same-account, same-habit pair like this tends to produce.
A realistic day
Right now: you open Instagram, get pulled into Threads through a cross-post or a suggestion, and spend fifteen minutes on an app you didn't consciously choose to open at all — the switch between the two happens inside one tap, with no moment where you'd normally notice you'd left the app you actually meant to check. With the toll in place: crossing into Threads costs its own question, separate from Instagram's, every single time the switch happens, not just the first time you open either app that day. Some days you answer both and use both apps anyway — that's allowed, and it isn't the point. Other days, hitting a second question you weren't expecting is enough of a jolt to notice you'd drifted somewhere you didn't mean to go, and you close out instead of following the cross-post any further.