Screen Time — Small change big impact
During a year-end lunch, I had an interesting conversation with some young colleagues.
“Take out your phone and check your screen time for last week. I bet it’s around 8–10 hours a day, right?”
“Yeah, mine’s over 10 hours,” one replied.
“Do you think you’re using your smartphone more than you want to?”
“I guess so.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, I open it without any specific purpose, but 20 minutes later, I find myself still scrolling through Instagram.”
“That seems to be the case for many people. So, you feel like you’re using it more than you’d like. Do you have a way to make it ‘as you want’?”
“I check the weekly screen time report, see how much time I spend on each app, and try to adjust. But after a few weeks, it’s the same. Eventually, I stopped looking at the reports.”
“Let me show you a method, and tell me if it works after a week. iOS has widgets now. Replace that default widget (the weather one you never really need) with the screen time widget. Let me explain why this works:
“The decision-making process should go from data to understanding to action. To take the right action (should I spend more time or not), you need understanding (is it too much already?). To gain understanding, you need data (how much have I spent?). The problem with your current process is that the data retrieval speed is too slow (once a week). By the time you gain insight from the data, you can’t take immediate action, and when you do take action, you can’t see the results right away.
“The screen time widget is already there, but it’s hidden behind 2–3 steps. That small distance makes a big difference. By putting the screen time widget on your home screen, you suddenly have real-time data and insight, and your actions can be immediate. This improvement process will ensure that before you can take any unintentional action, you’re forced to see the data, gain insight, and take intentional action.
“Data about yourself is like a mirror; you won’t want to see yourself ‘ugly.’ It’s the same in business. If branch reports are compiled, but data is only available for analysis after a few days, decisions will be delayed. Or if all data is collected but there’s no proper BI setup for users to access, the data is meaningless.
“In reality, you shouldn’t control the time spent on your smartphone, but rather the time spent on your smartphone without intention. It’s 2021, and this era’s smartphone — a supercomputer in your pocket — is like a sword in martial arts movies or a wand in Harry Potter. It holds immense power, but only for those who master it; otherwise, it consumes you and turns you into the one who falls into the abyss at the end of the movie.
“Choose a good smartphone, set it up to serve you, and increase your capacity. For example, set it up for instant information verification, as a secondary memory (besides your brain), for remote work, for creativity, and for intelligence… This is a must-have skill. Don’t be satisfied with default setups, especially notifications.
“Oh, and if you still have the phone app (or any default apps) in the dock of your phone, reconsider. Do you use the phone app that much? Hint: In the screen time report, there’s a section for the most used and first used after pickup.
“Leaving all setups as default increases the likelihood that you’re using your smartphone not according to your intention, but according to the marketers out there. They spend billions with top psychologists, marketing experts, and engineers to compete for home screen real estate, attention, time, and of course, your money.
“That’s not necessarily bad, as long as you know you have the right and the ability to allocate your resources as you see fit, to serve yourself. This is a very small change, but looking back, it could be the butterfly’s first wing flap (butterfly effect).
“Hey, are you awake? Fell asleep?”
“Wait, are you done talking? Yawn.”
PS: Besides screen time, there’s also Rescue Time.
