One Tech Tip: Wasting too much time on social media apps? Tips and tricks to curb smartphone use

LONDON (AP) — If you've got a smartphone, you probably spend too much time on it — checking Instagram, watching silly TikTok videos, messaging on WhatsApp or doomscrolling on X.

It can be hard to curb excessive use of smartphones and social media, which are addictive by design. Reducing your screen time is often more than just a matter of willpower, especially for younger people whose brains and impulse control are still developing.

If you're a phone addict who wants to cut down on the hours a day spent looking at your device, here are some techniques you can try to free up more IRL time:

Delete apps

An easy first step is getting rid of any apps you've been wasting time on.

Over the past year, I've deleted Facebook, Instagram and Twitter from my phone because I wanted to use them less. Now and then I’ll have to go the app store and reinstall one because I need to do something like post a photo I took on my phone. (Sometimes I'll transfer the photo to my laptop and then post it to the web from there, but usually, it’s too much hassle.)

The danger with this approach is that if you do reinstall the app, you won't bother deleting it again.

Use built-in controls

Both iPhones and Android devices have onboard controls to help regulate screen time. They can also be used by parents to regulate children's phone usage.

Apple's Screen Time controls are found in the iPhone's settings menu. Users can set overall Downtime, which shuts off all phone activity during a set period. If you want a phone-free evening, then you could set it to kick in from, say, 7 p.m. until 7 a.m.

The controls also let users put a blanket restriction on certain categories of apps, such as social, games or entertainment or zero in on a specific app, by limiting the time that can be spent on it. Too distracted by Instagram? Then set it so that you can only use it for a daily total of 20 minutes.

The downside is that the limits aren’t hard to get around. It’s more of a nudge than a red line that you can’t cross. If you try to open an app with a limit, you’ll get a screen menu offering one more minute, a reminder after 15 minutes, or to completely ignore it.

Android users can use turn to their Digital Wellbeing settings, which include widgets to remind users how much screen time they've had. There's also the option to create separate work and personal profiles, so you can hide your social media apps and their notifications when you're at the office.

Don't be distracted

There are other little tricks to make your phone less distracting. I use the Focus mode on my iPhone to silence notifications. For example, If I'm in a meeting somewhere, I mute it until I leave that location. Android also has a Focus mode to pause distracting apps.

Change your phone display to grayscale from color so that it doesn't look so exciting. On iPhones, adjust the color filter in your settings. For Android, turn on Bedtime Mode, or tweak the color correction setting.

Android phones can also nag users not to look at their phones while walking, by activating the Heads Up feature in Digital Wellbeing.

Block those apps

If the built-in controls aren't enough, there are many third-party apps, like Jomo, Opal, Forest, Roots and LockMeOut that are designed to cut down screen time.

Many of these apps have both free and premium versions with more features, and strongly push you toward signing up for a subscription by minimizing the option to "skip for now" on the payment screen. I tested out a few on my iPhone for this story.

To try out Opal, I reinstalled Facebook so I could block it. Whenever I tapped the Facebook icon, Opal intervened to give me various inspirational messages, like “Gain Wisdom, Lose Facebook," and tallied how many times I tried to open it. To get around the block, I had to open Opal and wait through a six-second timeout before requesting up to 15 minutes to look at Facebook. There's an option to up the difficulty by increasing the delay before you can look again.

Jomo, which I used to restrict my phone's Reddit app, worked in a similar way: tap the Unlock button, which took me to the Jomo app, where I had to wait 20 seconds before I could tap the button to unlock Reddit for up to 10 minutes.

The OneSec app takes a different approach by reminding users to first take a pause. The installation, which involves setting up an automation on the iPhone's Shortcuts, can be confusing. When I eventually installed it for my Bluesky app, it gave me a prompt to run a shortcut that wiped my screen with a soothing purple-blue and reminded me to take a deep breath before letting me choose to open the app — but in practice it was too easy to just skip the prompt.

The Android-only LockMeOut can freeze you out of designated apps based on criteria like your location, how many times you've opened an app, or how long you've used it.

The obvious way to defeat these apps is simply to delete them, although some advise users to follow the proper uninstall procedure or else apps could remain blocked.

Use external hardware

Digital blockers might not be for everyone. Some startups, figuring that people might prefer a tangible barrier, offer hardware solutions that introduce physical friction between you and an app.

Unpluq is a yellow tag that you have to hold up to your phone in order to access blocked apps. Brick and Blok are two different products that work along the same lines — they're squarish pieces of plastic that you have to tap or scan with your phone to unlock an app.

The makers of these devices say that software solutions are too easy to bypass, but a physical object that you can put somewhere out of reach or leave behind if you're going somewhere is a more effective way to get rid of distractions.

What about stashing the phone away entirely? There are various phone lockboxes and cases available, some of them designed so parents can lock up their teenagers' phones when they're supposed to be sleeping. Yondr, which makes portable phone locking pouches used at concerts or in schools, also sells a home phone box.

See a therapist

Perhaps there are deeper reasons for your smartphone compulsion. Maybe it's a symptom of underlying problems like anxiety, stress, loneliness, depression or low self-esteem. If you think that's the case, it could be worth exploring therapy that is becoming more widely available.

One London hospital treats "technology addiction" with a plan that includes dealing with "discomfort in face-to-face time" with other people, and exploring your relationship with technology.

Another clinic boasts that its social media addiction treatment also includes working on a patient's technology management skills, such as “setting boundaries for device usage, finding alternative activities to fill the void of reduced online interaction, and learning how to engage more with the physical world.”

Downgrade your phone

Why not trade your smartphone for a more basic one? It's an extreme option but there's a thriving subculture of cellphones with only basic features, catering to both retro enthusiasts and people, including parents, worried about screen time. They range from cheap old-school brick-and-flip phones by faded brands like Nokia to stylish but pricier devices from boutique manufacturers like Punkt.

The tradeoff, of course, is that you'll also have to do without essential apps like Google Maps or your bank.

___

Is there a tech topic that you think needs explaining? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your suggestions for future editions of One Tech Tip.