Lo and behold, by setting time limits, my total usage time went from 4 hours and 30 minutes a day to 3 hours and 30 minutes. I got an hour of my life back every day. Not bad, but I wanted to reduce my screen time even more, so I turned to some radical techniques.
Take some radical measures
Google includes some other tweaks that make your phone less attractive. For example, Android’s bed mode dims the screen and turns everything to black and white. To find this option, go into the Digital Wellbeing settings, look for the Bedtime mode and set the usage period to start around 8 p.m. This also turns off notifications until the next morning. For me, bedtime mode helped by visually reminding me to put down my phone and stop scrolling. I reduced my consumption by another hour.
Unfortunately, I was still using the phone too much. I’m always drawn to notifications of new text messages, Discord chats, and emails. Who contacts me? What do they need? Once again, we crave the hit of dopamine that comes when we hear those beeps. We feel useful and productive when we respond, but the downside is that we are even more glued to our screens.
What finally worked for me is so simple it’s almost comical. Google Pixel and Samsung phones include this feature, as do many other Android models: When you turn the phone face down, it automatically turns off all notifications and most phone calls. (Only contacts you’ve marked as favorites will get through.) An important tip here: Make sure you wait until there’s a slight vibration when you turn your phone face down, letting you know that Do Not Disturb mode is on. This trick had a great impact. I stopped hearing the beeps and didn’t pick up the phone as often.
Information is power
In total, using app timers and sleep mode, and turning my Pixel 9 Pro face down, I reduced my usage time to about two hours per day. That’s pretty shocking, especially since I didn’t feel like I missed anything. I was also more productive when I knew I had set boundaries. In Google Chrome, for example, I did my searches more intentionally and stopped mindlessly browsing. Some colleagues even noticed that he turned his phone upside down and started doing the same trick.
Of course, these cheats are only effective if you keep them enabled and then check your progress in the dashboard. For me, it became a daily challenge. I would check the final usage statistics in Digital Wellbeing and try to beat my “score” the next day.
My biggest victory? I felt liberated. I started reading more books and talking to friends. I even started playing a new physical card game in my free time. I felt like I had finally conquered my phone after so many years, instead of my phone dominating my entire life.
Article originally published in WIRED. Adapted by Mauricio Serfatty Godoy.
#cut #phones #usage #time #settings #built #Android
