Problem Students open Instagram for one quick thing and end up 45 minutes deep in raccoon videos. Not because they're lazy — but because decision fatigue leaves a vacuum, and social media is perfectly engineered to fill it.
Inspiration Most wellness tools treat social media like a bad habit to punish. Minh Dau and Jacqueline Choi saw it differently — doomscrolling is a symptom of something deeper: the absence of a better option in the moment. The real fix isn't blocking Instagram, it's rebuilding the cognitive pause that breaks the cycle.
What They Built Momentum is a Chrome extension that intercepts you the moment you open Instagram. It asks why you're here, checks in on how you're feeling, and offers a real alternative — your own to-do list, a hobby you actually care about, a 2-minute wellness activity. If you still want Instagram, you can open it — but now it's a choice, not a default.
How It Evolved The team iterated fast across four versions: starting with a basic intent-check, then adding a companion character with XP rewards, then integrating live AI for task breakdowns and motivational responses, and finally working toward crisis detection and full Chrome extension integration.
Impact Less scrolling is just the surface. Momentum gives students back something more valuable — a sense of control, intentionality, and a moment to actually choose what matters to them.
Built With
- anthropic
- api
- claude
- vercel
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