Eph-iciency

Eph-iciency - Focus Extension

Inspiration Digital platforms today are built to maximize attention. From YouTube recommendations to short-form videos and games, students often lose focus within minutes of trying to study. We noticed this problem most clearly on YouTube, where a single educational search can quickly turn into hours of unrelated content. This inspired us to build Eph-iciency, a tool that helps students stay intentional online.

What It Does Eph-iciency is a browser extension that helps students reduce digital distractions by limiting access to non study content. Users choose allowed study topics and enable focus mode. While active, content unrelated to those topics is blocked from interaction. If a student tries to click on blocked content, Eph-iciency intervenes with a motivational reminder instead.

Although the long term vision supports multiple platforms, our hackathon MVP focuses specifically on YouTube.

How We Built It We built Eph-iciency as a Chrome browser extension focused on YouTube, using a simple and effective extension architecture.

manifest.json defines the extension configuration, permissions, and injects scripts into YouTube pages.
content.js runs directly on YouTube and handles the core logic:
- Observes dynamically loaded video elements
- Extracts video titles and channel information
- Uses keyword matching to determine whether a video matches the allowed study topics
- Blocks interaction with unrelated videos by intercepting click events
- Displays motivational popups when blocked content is clicked
popup.html provides a lightweight user interface for the extension.
popup.js manages user input, allowing students to:
- Select allowed study topics
- Start and stop focus mode
- Customize motivational messages

All logic runs entirely client side, with no backend required, making the extension fast, simple, and reliable for a hackathon demo.

Challenges We Faced

YouTube’s dynamic layout: Videos load continuously, requiring real time observation.
Content classification: We balanced simplicity and accuracy using keyword based rules.
Preventing clicks cleanly: Blocking interaction without breaking the site UI was challenging.
Scope control: We deliberately limited the MVP to YouTube to ensure a polished demo.

What We Learned

How quickly attention can be diverted by recommendation systems
How to build effective browser extensions for complex web apps
The importance of narrowing scope during hackathons
That small interventions can significantly improve focus

What’s Next Future versions of Eph-iciency could expand to other platforms like TikTok, Google Search, and gaming sites, with smarter classification, analytics, and personalized focus rules.

Eph-iciency helps students stay focused, starting with YouTube.