Step aside, phone: week 1
When I embarked on this experiment with Manu, I told him in advance that there was no chance I would be able to get even remotely close to his Screen Time minutes.
In his post for the week, he himself explained why this is the case:
Now, one consideration about this first week: in order to push my phone usage this low, I had to move some of my normal phone usage over to my Mac, which is how I managed to basically never touch chat apps on my phone. I know this is pretty much cheating, but it was intentional and something I was planning to do only in this first week, and I will move that screen time back on my phone starting next week.
Manu is a freelance developer, I work in an office, and spend the majority of my time in meetings, talking to people, and if I have the chance working from my desk. So I'm basically reliant on my phone to get shit done in between.
Looking at my Screen Time throughout the week, I'd guess around 70% of my phone usage was spent in two apps: Beeper, and Discord. 15% was spent in Outlook and Teams. The remaining 15% were spent in the browser, my email client, my banking app, and a few other miscellaneous apps.
Some explanation is needed.
Why I used Beeper should be obvious, it's where I added all my messaging services, and how I stay in contact with my friends and family. Beeper is one of the only apps that is allowed to send me push notifications to my phone.
I use Discord as I am in one server with real-life friends from Germany. It's basically our chat group, so while Discord could be used as a time-waster, in this case I'd say it isn't.
Before the experiment started, I deleted all social media apps from my phone, and throughout the week only used the website versions of Instagram thrice, and on Bluesky twice. In the case of Instagram, I was doing some research, while for Bluesky I only checked my DM inbox, as I knew someone texted me. (Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I can add Bluesky DM to Beeper?) Although, I did catch myself looking at two stories on Instagram, before realizing what I was doing and closing the tab. The pull is still strong.
The other big chunk of usage was MS Teams and Outlook, Fastmail, and the browser. I'm considering deleting the Microsoft apps and Fastmail, however. I don't really need Outlook or Teams on my phone, because I don't need to deal with emergencies. I'd only ever need it to look at my calendar, but there are other ways to do that. As for Fastmail, I've realized that – since I don't get push notifications when a new mail comes in – I go and refresh my inboxes myself. And so, when in the past I opened Instagram to waste my time, this week I sometimes used Fastmail that way. And that is no bueno!
The only real time wasting app I have on my phone is Pokémon TCG Pocket. But somehow that app has no pull on me whatsoever. I only open it once every 12 hours or so, to open up my pack, and then I am done. Sometimes I do some single-player battles if there are some limited time cards, but to be fair, I just use the auto battler feature, and don't even look at my screen during these games. On most days, I barely have a minute in that game.
A little note on the lack of screenshots in this blog post. Somehow, my iOS tracking is broken or I managed to break the laws of physics. Just look for yourself:
All other days look similar, except today. Today, at the time of publishing, I have 1h03 minutes, of which most was spent, again in Beeper, the browser, and surprisingly Wikipedia.
Also, on Wednesday Screen Time somehow measured 3 hours I spent on my self-hosted gym app, between 4 and 7 am. I actively refuse to wake up before 7 am, so I have no clue what's going on with my phone. And I didn't even go to the gym that day.
