In the middle of my daughter's first day at Disney World, I received the latest screen time report from Apple. Waiting for the rides, I reflexively checked my phone and tapped the app icon. Like many parents who are distracted, this caused a suffocating guilt that I was watching the screen rather than more for my little one. I do that at home too, and I want to stop.
Ironically, I was once again distracted by the notification telling me to look at my phone to learn how to watch it.
Screen Time Report – A weekly summary of the time spent on various apps Apple and Google submit users – is the foundation of digital wellness that has been around for over a decade. For some, digital wellness may simply mean using less phones, while for others it may mean less distraction like unnecessary notifications.
Following the public backlash over the aggravation of smartphones in young people's mental health issues, Apple and Google have provided people with additional tools to track and limit device usage. In 2018, Apple announced Screen Time, and Google launched a digital well-being feature for Android. These settings were essentially an adult version of existing features that allowed children to restrict devices, such as setting time limits for certain apps. In fact, when it comes to digital wellness, you can be your parent.
Seven years have passed, but I don't know if I feel good digitally.
Seven years have passed, but I don't know if I feel good digitally. I tried out the hacking combination in my phone's accessibility settings and tinkered with third-party apps that tweak my behavior from bad habits like many, but I still look at my phone. And I've still become that father checking my notifications at Disney World.
But there is one thing that helped my phone habits. I created the home screen as boring as possible. And when it doesn't work, I leave it behind.
Screen times are always inferior
The mission of Apple and Google's digital wellness tools seemed constantly confused. After all, it's counterintuitive for high-tech companies to release a set of features designed to reduce product use. Apple and Google don't actually want you to have a phone. They just want you to like them.
About a decade ago, a wave of anxiety that smartphones were hurting our brains, especially the children's brains, was hit by the high-tech industry. In a 2017 Atlantic article, psychologist Jean Twenge asked if smartphones “destroyed generations.” The following year, two prominent Wall Street investors asked Apple to study how Apple's products affect our health. Screen Time was the answer to the company. Google launched its digital well-being tool around the same time. Many social media apps, including Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube, usually also offer such features.
We shouldn't feel helpless in a world where our apps are saturated. However, you can update some simple settings to reduce your phone habits. Tristan Harris, co-founder of Center for Humane Technology, provided three tips in the 2018 VOX video that still makes sense today.
- Turn off all non-human notifications
- Create a screen grayscale
- Limit the home screen to essential everyday tools
Apple's Screen Time Report displays some basic statistics. Total screen time, time spent on individual apps, number of phones received, and notifications. You can also set app time limits and downtime. This also allows only certain apps to be used for a certain period of time. Google's Digital Well-Being Report is almost the same. All of this is buried in the device settings, and on Apple devices, the data will be deleted in 7 days.
This information is The seeds It's interesting if you like looking at statistics and finding patterns. It's like a fitness tracking for your attention. However, unlike Apple's health and fitness app, if you have an Apple Watch, if you actively stand up or urge them to warn loud sounds strongly, ScreenTime will passively collect this information and deliver it once a week through push alerts.
There has been a lot of focus on screen time over the past decade, but knowing how much time you spent staring at the screen doesn't really help. And, according to Cambridge researcher Amira Skeggs, when it comes to social media apps, it's really a poor metric.
“When you say screen time, it could be someone who calls your mother on whatsapp and has a really fulfilling, beautiful conversation, or maybe someone who's a 14-year-old looking at Tiktok's self-harmed content,” explained Skeggs. “And these two things are equated with screen time, and obviously the relationship with happiness will be very different.”
The fact that these reports give you numbers and little practical information is a well-covered topic. The New York Times reported in 2019 that “Screen Time is over.” The Atlantic, known as Screen Time, last year reported “the worst feature Apple has ever made,” while Wired said in 2023 that “Tracking Screen Time is ruining your life.” These are melodramatic takes in my opinion, but I'm wondering if Apple and Google can do it.
Together, software created by Apple and Google runs on over 98% of mobile devices worldwide. If Apple and Google really wanted it, they could be doing more to integrate digital wellness features into their operating systems. Nudges here and there – as simple as encouraging people to take a break – may help billions of people stop Doomscrolling.
“If it's a priority for them, we'll see better integration,” Andrew Pruzibilski, professor of technology and human behavior at the Oxford Internet Institute, told me. He went on to explain that he was unable to export screen time data and could not enroll in clinical trials for device use, like Apple Health data. Researchers also have little insight into how Apple and Google develop screen time and digital welfare features.
“There's something you'll expect over the past seven years,” Przybylski added. “In fact, you'd expect to see that there will actually be some independent tests to show that they're at work.”
We asked Apple and Google about integrating digital wellness tools into their operating systems. Apple declined to comment. Google did not reply.
To be clear, Apple and Google have updated these suites of features, but these updates focus primarily on parental controls. After cracking down on third-party parent control apps, Apple introduced the Screen Time API in 2021, allowing developers to build apps using specific screen time data without compromising user privacy. Meanwhile, Google has released an alert called Heads Up that tells you when you are walking on your phone. And last year, Google quietly unveiled a feature called a Screen Time Reminder that sometimes tweaks you if you've been in a single app for a long time.
Comparing these incremental improvements with third-party digital wellness apps, you can start processing how much Apple and Google can do. I have tested three popular things for the past few weeks: Forest, 1 second and Freedom, and although my reflexive phone checks have not been cured, I am more careful about how to look at the screen and pay attention.
- Forest has been my favorite app so far. Borrowing from Pomodoro's time management technology allows you to “plant” a digital tree. You cannot leave the app for a certain amount of time. Forest rewards you with tokens for focus sessions that can be used to unlock and plant new types of trees. It's $4 to download and own, and it's oddly convincing to use.
- One second with a more complicated setup process essentially adds time delay when you try to open a particular app. You can create custom interventions for each app, including simple tasks to complete before the app opens, activate the front camera, and turn your eyes before proceeding to DoomScroll. The free version allows you to do this in one app. For $20 a year, the Pro version offers unlimited apps and several other features.
- Freedom is even more comprehensive, allowing you to control which apps and websites you block during certain circumstances. Tap Apple's Screen Time API, which can communicate with your phone's operating system, Freedom completely changes the phone's behavior, adjusts blocked app icons, and prevents websites from being loaded in Safari. It costs $40 a year.
What really worked in terms of helping me answer my phone isn't just that it's not so funny. Making your phone grayscale is the easiest way to do this. If everything is black and white, scrolling through Instagram is boring. You can also try Apple's focus mode. This allows you to create presets that minimize distractions for various scenarios. Google's Digital Wellbeing offers a similar feature.
Secrets that reduce scrolling are easy. Make your home screen boring. Use the greyscale trick, use the “colored” option in iPhone settings, or use the Android settings to turn the app icon into monochrome. Remove as many app icons as possible while you are in it. You can keep what you actually use on your phone and find the rest using the search feature. You also can use widgets for basic information such as calendars and weather, so there is no need to open the app.
Most of us don't even realize we're staring at the screen without purpose. In a way, I had to break my phone to make it work properly. My home screen is now sparsely black and white. I only get notifications when humans are trying to contact me, and when I really want to pay attention to my family, I keep my phone in another room. It is impossible to scroll when it is not touched.
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