from Substack

How I dropped my Screen Time to less than 2 hours per day

Don't be a zombie lunatic

Nate Zaru

10 Jun 2023 — 3 min read

If you think about it, the connection with your smartphone is your most intimate relationship. What else do you stare at for hours and hours per day and share your closest moments with? What else understands you — all your greatest hopes and deepest preferences — as well as your smartphone?

If you want a fun party trick or conversation starter, just ask your friend or lady to pull out their phone and open up Screen Time.

Now that you’re reading this, let’s open your own phone and look at your own Screen Time.

What do you notice?

Your iPhone gets more attention than your wife

How much time do you think you spend with your wife or girlfriend or kids per day?

I did a bunch of Google searching and it seems that the average Screen Time is between 4-7 hours per day. That’s pretty tremendous. This seems like a reliable data source.

I don’t want to be a zombie lunatic

Using your phone too much is bad for your posture, bad for your eyes, bad for your brain, and gets in the way of experiencing this wonderful thing called life.

Luckily I realized that early on. So ever since I got my first Android more than 10 years ago, I’ve been hyper conscious of my usage, and I’ve tried all the things to be sure I don’t use it too much. Grey scale. Blocking apps. Deleting apps. Unfollowing everyone. Turning the phone off. Hiding the phone. Etc etc.

But, every week, just like all of you, I get my default Screen Time report from Apple. And, yikes. Nothing consistently worked.

To be fair, I’m not like many of you TikToking zombie lunatics clocking 6+ hours per day. I was consistently in the 3 hours per day range. But that is still was way too much for me.

How I actually got to less than 2 hours per day

Several months ago I realized you can create a Screen Time widget on your iPhone. Now I have a large widget prominently on my Home Screen that tells me my Screen Time every day, in real time.

When I hit 1 hour for the day, I walk away. That’s enough iPhone for me for the day.

Of course, the phone activities never stop, so I end up clocking more time. Owning a modern iPhone truly is a great power and privilege, and I don’t think we should prohibit ourselves unnecessarily.

But once I hit 1 hour, I give myself notice that’s enough for the day. I have been at or below 2 hours per day for many months now, and I think that is quite reasonable.

You definitely have time to exercise and workout

This is an interesting ongoing experiment, and I’ve yet to meet someone who isn’t ashamed of their own Screen Time. To be fair, it’s not entirely your fault, apps are designed to be addictive, which perhaps I’ll write about another time from my perspective building and marketing products in the tech world.

But you definitely have time to exercise and workout. As I have shown many times before, you don’t need much time or equipment to get a great workout.

Here are my latest recommendations to help you do just that.