November 9, 2025, 3:44 pm | Read time: 4 minutes
Many people want to voluntarily reduce their time on social media. Most fail due to their own lack of self-discipline. Support comes from American Mark Lyons with his social network, seven39. There is a clear rule here: The platform is only accessible for three hours a day. TECHBOOK explains what’s behind it in this article.
The approach of seven39 deliberately harks back to the early days of the internet. Back then, people went online. Today, we are all constantly connected to the digital world via smartphones and are always reachable.
“In those early days, there were moments after school when I went online, played a game, or eagerly waited on AOL Messenger for friends to chat with for a few minutes,” recalls Mark Lyons. The programmer wants to revive this exciting feeling with his social media project seven39.
Going Online with seven39, Like in the Past
That’s why his mission is stated on the site: “Social media works better when everyone is online at the same time. No endless scrolling. No FOMO. Just three hours of fun every evening.”
In doing so, seven39 consciously opposes the trend of ever-increasing time spent on social media. Current figures from the “Digital 2026” report by the social media agency We are Social, together with the social intelligence market research company Meltwater, show that people now spend more than 90 minutes a day on TikTok alone. That’s more than half the time available daily for interactions on seven39.
Mark Lyons’ social media project is still in the testing phase. Therefore, the number of users is limited to 3,000. Further registrations are currently not possible.
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One Man’s Passion Project
Registered users receive an automatic email every evening at 7:39 p.m. Eastern Time, stating: “seven39 is open again.” In Germany, that would be shortly after midnight, at 12:39 a.m. Mark Lyons is considering different three-hour time slots for various regions worldwide as he develops his project. However, the majority of the community is against it. They believe that this strict focus on a single time makes seven39 unique.
The community means a lot to the programmer and therefore has some participatory rights and design options. Suggestions are usually implemented promptly by Mark Lyons.
Initially reminiscent of a rather simple Twitter clone, the platform now also has the usual features to follow other users or mention users in comments with the @ symbol. It sounds trivial. However, behind seven39 is not a startup company, but a single man fulfilling a passion project.
Cool Idea or Viable Business Model?
Therefore, it is still completely open how and if seven39 will grow. Many users find the fixed time generally good, but wish for a different time of day for the three-hour window. In the evening, most people spend time with family or indulge in streaming series or movies, as some quiet criticism from parts of the seven39 community suggests.
If the platform opens to more users, the issue of content moderation is likely to become more significant. Currently, the interaction among registered users is very harmonious. However, with a growing number of people on seven39, this could quickly change.
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The question remains whether the project has a larger future at all. Initially, the nostalgic feeling of the internet, like in the 1990s, may have a certain appeal. But the low response to one’s posts can quickly lead to fatigue. After all, users secretly wish for as many hearts or thumbs up as possible.
Mark Lyons leaves his future plans for the platform open: “Maybe I’ll find out that seven39 is just a cool idea, rather than a viable business model.” Otherwise, he sees his social media project as an impetus for others to consider using other social media more consciously and thus less.