Why We’re All Glued to Our Screens (And Why It Matters)
I checked my screen time report last week and honestly? I wanted to throw my phone into the ocean. Seven hours and forty-two minutes. On a Tuesday. That’s basically a full work day spent staring at a tiny rectangle.
If you’re reading this, you probably have a similar story. Maybe you’ve noticed your eyes feel tired by 3 PM. Maybe you’re doom-scrolling at midnight when you should be sleeping. Or maybe your kid told you to put your phone down and it hit different.
Whatever brought you here, the good news is this: reducing screen time doesn’t require going full monk mode. You don’t need to delete every app or move to a cabin in the woods. Small, realistic changes can make a big difference. I’ve tested a bunch of approaches over the past year, and I’m going to share what actually worked — and what was a total waste of time.
First, Figure Out Where Your Time Actually Goes
Before you change anything, you need data. Both iPhones and Android phones have built-in screen time tracking. On iPhone, it’s under Settings > Screen Time. On Android, check Settings > Digital Wellbeing.
Look at your report for the past week. What apps are eating your hours? For most people, it’s some combination of social media, YouTube, and messaging apps. For me, it was Reddit and Instagram. I was spending nearly two hours a day on those two apps alone.
Write down your top three time-wasting apps. Seriously, grab a sticky note. This isn’t some self-help exercise — it’s just useful to see the numbers in front of you. Once you know where the time goes, you can actually do something about it.
Set App Timers (But Be Honest With Yourself)
Both iOS and Android let you set daily time limits for individual apps. I set Instagram to 30 minutes and Reddit to 20 minutes per day. The first week was rough. I kept hitting “Ignore Limit” like a reflex.
Here’s the trick that worked for me: I had my wife change the Screen Time passcode on my iPhone so I literally couldn’t override the limit. Sounds extreme? Maybe. But it worked. When the app locks, it locks. You move on with your life.
If you don’t have someone to set the passcode, there are third-party apps like Opal or One Sec that add friction before opening distracting apps. One Sec makes you take a deep breath before it lets you into Instagram. It sounds silly, but that five-second pause is enough to make you think “do I actually want to do this right now?”
The Grayscale Trick That Actually Works
This one blew my mind. You can turn your phone screen to grayscale (black and white), and suddenly your phone becomes way less appealing. All those colorful app icons and flashy notifications? Gone. Everything looks boring. And boring is exactly the point.
On iPhone: Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters > Grayscale.
On Android: Settings > Digital Wellbeing > Bedtime Mode (or search for “grayscale” in settings).
I used this for about two weeks and my screen time dropped by almost 40%. The phone just wasn’t fun to look at anymore. I eventually went back to color because, well, I needed to edit some photos. But I still flip it to grayscale in the evenings and it makes a huge difference.
Create Phone-Free Zones in Your Home
This is old-school advice but it works. Pick two places in your house where phones are not allowed. For us, it’s the bedroom and the dining table.
The bedroom one was the game-changer. I bought a cheap alarm clock (like $8 on Amazon) so I had no excuse to bring my phone to bed. The first few nights felt weird — I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I ended up reading actual books. Crazy concept, right?
My sleep improved within a week. I’m not saying this as some wellness guru making claims — I’m saying I was falling asleep faster and waking up less groggy. That’s it. No magic, just not staring at blue light until midnight.
If you’re looking for other ways to improve your daily habits, check out our guide on doing a 7-day digital detox — it goes deeper into resetting your relationship with technology.
Replace the Habit, Don’t Just Remove It
Here’s where most people fail. They try to just stop using their phone without replacing the habit with something else. Your brain craves stimulation. If you take away the phone and don’t give it an alternative, you’ll be back to scrolling within 48 hours.
What worked for me:
- Morning: Instead of checking my phone first thing, I make coffee and read for 10 minutes. Physical book, not Kindle (too tempting to switch apps).
- Commute: Podcasts or audiobooks instead of social media scrolling.
- Evening: Board games, cooking something new, or just talking to my partner. You know, like humans used to do.
- Boredom moments: I keep a small notebook in my pocket. When I get the urge to check my phone, I jot down a thought or doodle instead. It sounds corny, but the urge passes in about 30 seconds.
The point isn’t to fill every moment with productivity. It’s to have something ready so you don’t default to your phone out of pure habit.
Turn Off Notifications (Most of Them, Anyway)
Go into your notification settings right now and turn off notifications for everything except calls, texts from real humans, and maybe your calendar. That’s it.
Do you really need a push notification every time someone likes your tweet? Or when a game you haven’t played in three months wants you to come back? No. You don’t. Those notifications are designed to pull you back in. Every ping is a little dopamine hit that makes you pick up your phone.
I turned off notifications for 90% of my apps about six months ago. I check things when I want to, not when some algorithm decides I should. The difference in mental clarity is real. I’m not constantly feeling that pull to check my phone.
Speaking of dopamine, if you want to understand why your brain gets hooked on these cycles, we wrote about how dopamine detoxes work and how to reset your brain.
Use Your Phone’s Built-In Focus Modes
Both iPhone and Android have Focus or Do Not Disturb modes that go way beyond just silencing calls. You can set up custom modes for work, sleep, and personal time.
My setup:
- Work Focus (9 AM – 5 PM): Only allows calls from favorites, work apps like Slack and email, and nothing else.
- Sleep Focus (10 PM – 7 AM): Only allows calls from favorites. Everything else is blocked.
- Weekend Focus: No work apps at all. Email? Gone. Slack? Invisible.
You can even set these to turn on automatically based on time or location. It takes about 10 minutes to set up and then you never have to think about it again.
The Weekend Experiment
If you really want to see how dependent you are on your phone, try this: spend one Saturday without it. Not off, just in a drawer. Use it only if someone calls.
I did this last month and the first two hours were genuinely uncomfortable. I kept reaching for my pocket. By hour four, something shifted. I noticed things. The way sunlight hit the kitchen counter. Sounds outside that I normally filter out. It sounds dramatic, but we filter out so much of our actual lives because we’re half-present at all times.
You don’t need to do this every weekend. But doing it once shows you what’s possible. And it makes going back to your phone feel like a choice rather than a compulsion.
What About Screen Time for Work?
Let’s be real — a lot of us work on computers all day. You can’t exactly go screen-free when your job requires a laptop. But there’s a difference between necessary screen time and mindless screen time.
A few things that help with work-related eye strain and fatigue:
- The 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Set a timer if you need to.
- Take walking meetings: If it’s a call that doesn’t need screen sharing, take it on a walk.
- Use blue light glasses: The science is mixed on these, honestly. But I wear them and my eyes feel less tired by end of day. Placebo? Maybe. But it works for me.
- Batch your email: Check email at set times (I do 9 AM, 12 PM, and 4 PM) instead of having it open all day.
If your computer is feeling sluggish and that’s contributing to frustration and more phone-checking, our post on how to speed up your computer for free might help with that.
Track Your Progress
Check your screen time report every Sunday. That’s it. Just look at the numbers. Are they going down? Great, keep doing what you’re doing. Going up? Time to adjust.
I started at about 7 hours a day. After two months of making these changes, I’m consistently around 3-4 hours — and a good chunk of that is actual useful stuff like maps, music, and work apps. The mindless scrolling went from 3+ hours to under 45 minutes most days.
That’s not perfect, and I’m not trying to pretend it is. Some days I still fall into a YouTube rabbit hole at 11 PM. But the trend is what matters, not any single day.
The Bottom Line
Reducing screen time is less about willpower and more about setting up your environment so the easy choice is also the healthy choice. Lock your apps, turn your screen gray, charge your phone outside the bedroom, have a book ready.
You’re not going to go from 8 hours to 2 hours overnight. And that’s fine. Even cutting one hour a day gives you 365 extra hours a year. That’s fifteen full days. Imagine what you could do with fifteen extra days.
Start small. Pick one thing from this list and try it for a week. Then add another. In a month, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do this sooner.