At the risk of sounding like one of those "I cut my screen time in half by using this one simple trick!!" clickbait thumbnails, the path to cutting my screen time in half. To cut it from around three and a half hours (which made me cringe every week when I got the report) to just over an hour, I followed three simple, progressive, steps:
My first step was to limit the ability to open the apps I was spending the most time on. Unsurprisingly, social media apps like Instagram, X/Twitter, and Facebook held the top spots when it came to screen time use. One cool feature iPhones have is a setting where you can limit usage on different apps, so this was step one. I set my limits to one hour of social media a day. Initially, this made a significant impact and made a good chunk of progress toward my goal.
Yet, I wasn't super happy with how I was spending my time. I was running into my hour time limit daily, and still using my phone in other ways. Eventually, I deleted all my social media apps off my phone. I acknowledged that if I really wanted to post something, I would re-download the app, sign back in or do so on a browser. This was actually a great experience. I did this for 8 weeks, and felt so much more mental clarity than I had felt in a long time. It was truly an enlightening experience. This reduced my screen time by another significant chunk.
I've since re-downloaded these apps, but I've taken them off my home screen and put them together in an obscure folder. Surprisingly, my screen time has not gone back up. It's actually decreased even more. Those 8 weeks weeks without them in my life started the trend of being aware of when I was mindlessly on my phone. Even with the apps back on there, I am better at recognizing the time that is unproductive.
My screen time is down to just barely over an hour, and some weeks it's been less than an hour a day. This is pretty good considering I've averaged between 2 hours and 45 minutes and 3 hours and 45 mins for as long as I can remember.
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