Screentime controls
Before you start paying out for apps to help you cut your screentime, try using the free controls already on your device.
On Apple devices, you can use Screen Time; Android has Digital Wellbeing. Both essentially offer the same features, limiting screentime and reducing distractions.
For example, you can lock out apps at certain times of day, choosing a certain category or specific apps. Time limits are also an option, which will give you a set amount of time in a particular app before it locks out. You can get around it with a passcode but it requires a conscious effort.
And if you want to embrace the full horror of your screen addiction, confronting it head on, the tools will also tell you how many times you pick your phone up in a day, and how long you spend on average staring at the screen. That is enough to make anyone think twice about their phone use.
RM Block
Parents can use Screen Time or Family Sharing settings on Apple, or the Family Link app on Android to monitor device usage, set screen time limits, and filter content. One catch: Apple devices will require an Apple account to manage settings. Android’s Family Link app, on the other hand, can be used through a parent’s iPhone too. Paid-for options such as Qustodio andOurPact can be used to manage multiple devices across different platforms.
Go grey
Smartphones are designed to be addictive, with alluring colours and vivid screens. Do you know what is not alluring? Grey. Switch your phone’s screen to greyscale and like many others before you, you might find the temptation to scroll for hours is suddenly dampened.
Get focus
Android and Apple offer “focus” modes that you can set for different times of day, silencing notifications from certain apps, or cutting them out. Work app notifications could be allowed on a “work focus” setting, cutting out social media notifications designed to drag you back in. Personal focus settings can cut out work-related notifications. And a bedtime focus mode can cut off all but the most important notifications – your morning alarm.
Your phone is even smart enough to suggest enabling these focus modes automatically, either at certain times of day or in certain locations. If you are worried you might miss an emergency call, you can allow certain contacts to break through the barrier you have erected.
Deleting some of the most time-hungry apps from your phone is a tried and tested method of releasing the grip your smartphone has on you. The biggest culprit is social media; if you have to reinstall the app and log in every time you want to check in on friends, famous people and a few enemies, it becomes a little too much bother.
Dumbphones
There was a trend a while ago for a “dumb” phone – the phones that preceded smartphones as we know them – to help get screentime in check. These phones came with a physical keypad rather than a touchscreen, and mainly just existed for making calls and sending texts. The relaunched versions include basic cameras and a few apps – WhatsApp for example, and some basic games. With small screens and a lack of apps to keep you coming back, screentime inevitably takes a dive.
The bonus? The battery lasts for days rather hours, so you can bring your phone and leave the charger at home.
However, so many aspects of day-to-day life in the modern world now depend on access to a smartphone, from your calendar and maps to email and banking, so a more pragmatic option may be to have a dumb phone for occasional or weekend use.
Bedroom ban
Having your phone beside you increases the temptation for a midnight scroll before bed, or grabbing your phone to check Instagram before you get up in the morning. Buy an alarm clock, leave your phone outside the bedroom at night, and cutting down your screen time at unsociable hours will come naturally.
