Statistics vary, but it’s generally accepted that the average American spends above five hours per day looking at their smartphone. Each day, we touch the darn things over 5,000 times, too. Over a year, that means we spend around 75 days on our phones, and we tap those little buttons close to two million times. Regardless of the veracity of the statistics (some surveys say we use them a little less), most of us agree that we have too much screen time. 

Smartphones are, of course, seen as essential devices. Many of us use them for work. In fact, many of us are obligated to use them for work. For leisure, they aren’t essential, but they are useful. You might use your smartphone to watch Netflix, wager a few bucks on a game like Silver Bullet, or use it to watch videos on TikTok. Not essential, but, you know, fun. 

Breaking the habit can have positive outcomes 

And yet, many of us will get that feeling we spend a lot of pointless time staring at our phones. The endless scrolling of social media is usually cited as the worst culprit. The repetitiveness and fruitlessness of it can become apparent, but we still come back to the well for more. Have you ever closed a social media tab on one device and then quickly opened it on another? How often do you look at your phone during a movie? We all do it. 

If you can find ways to break the habit of constant screen time you will feel all the better for it. Psychologists are in unanimous agreement that it can improve your mental health and general sense of well-being. The American Psychological Association has published warnings about the overuse of screens among kids and teens, but the same applies to all of us. 

Of course, nobody is saying you should suddenly jettison your smartphone into the nearest garbage can. But making an effort to cut down can be incredibly rewarding. There are plenty of articles available online that provide tips and tricks to help us reduce the amount of screen time, and some of them aren’t too difficult to implement. 

Deleting apps can help limit screen time

For example, an idea might be to delete apps, particularly social media, from your home screen. This does not mean deleting your account; only the app version. The idea is that it adds an extra layer between you and the platform. You can still use social media (or whatever other apps you are deleting), but you must use the web version, thus making it a little less easy to open your phone and tap. 

Another good idea is to fiddle around with the push notifications. Deleting the apps, as mentioned above, will limit the amount of notifications you get, but you can also manually adjust when, how, and from whom you receive notifications. For instance, you might want to introduce a cut-off point after dinner or when you are spending time with your loved ones. 

A non-technical idea that some find useful is the phone jar, i.e., a place (doesn’t have to be a jar) where the family must place their phones out of reach at certain times. It could be during a movie, or dinner, or at a certain point of the day when you decide that screen time is pointless. 

A huge number of us are using smartphones in bed. That has had a detrimental impact on our sleep, and it has even been shown to affect our intimacy with partners. Many of us have a sense that we need the phone right there beside us when we go to sleep. That’s understandable, as you might need it in case of an emergency. But it can do the job just as well in a drawer rather than your hand. 

Finally, you should be aware that both Apple and Google have rolled out several features that can help you monitor and decrease screen time. Yes, there is an irony in using our phones to ‘defeat’ our phones, but some of the measures are incredibly effective. Give it a go, and see if it makes you feel a little better.