Seven hours? (Seriously?) A Screen Time investigation

This past week, I got a somewhat horrifying screen time report from Apple. 

During the lost year of 2020, I had spent what I thought was an obscene amount of time on my phone, i.e., 3.5 hours, thanks to doomscrolling from 6am - 11:30pm, and then maybe escaping thereafter to watch Ted Lasso Season 1, the melodrama of The Undoing (or maybe some Bridgerton).

I thought 3.5 was a lot. 

But 7!--seven! Yes, seven hours, and some change to spare....yikes.

That's way too much screen time--way, way too much. Nearly a work day. 

That report was pretty awful to get. But it was also pretty perplexing. 

Where and how did those seven hours go? What apps Hoovered them up? And how and why did I really not notice this happening? 

No binge watching this summer--the most recent show I watched was the Italia-England soccer match. That and a clip of Questlove's Finding Your Roots episode. 

No audiobooks or e-books, my love of which the pandemic bulldozed right through and replaced with the aforementioned doomscrolling. 

Time for some sleuthing, courtesy ofApple's Screen Time analytics feature:

Not my phone. Elizabeth has clearly got her screen time under control. (Interestingly, this screenshot is from 2018--when 2h45m might have seemed like a problem. Not anymore!)

Have you tried this? Have your phone's screen time reports exploded this summer or past year, with working, teaching, and learning from home? 

My hours did this past month. And after checking out the Screen Time feature in settings, I could figure out exactly what was siphoning up those hours, and when and for how long. 

It turns out it wasn't Instagram, which I had imagined was the Medusa of the lot of apps on my phone, petrifying my brain cells one by one as I tried in vain to capture and like all of the posts related to a non-class (read: work-related) account. As absorbing as I felt Instagram to be, Apple's Screen Time tool told me it only devours about 60 minutes or so per day of time. 

The rest?

Safari!

I'm not sure what's going on with Safari--perhaps it's because I'm, well, using it all day long for work-related tasks, so its little Safari windows with Outlook are open and running for seven-plus hours a day. Whatever it might be, I'm going to try to figure it out--and also take a digital cleanse. 

Again, seven-plus hours is a clear sign to pump the brakes, and step away from the phone. Or, rather, to set Screen Time limits, which you can do with Safari. (I set mine to two hours--I'll see how it goes this week.)

Here's a basic Screen Time video tutorial from Apple, if you're thinking of doing a digital cleanse and you, like me, know really nothing about Screen Time for adults: 


Need the next step? Here's a video on scheduling Downtime, also from Apple: 


Have you ever tried Downtime for your phone or iPad? Did your screen time explode during the summer or pandemic? Thinking of giving it a try to help you with your own digital cleanse or detox? I'd love to hear your thoughts and learn about your own experiences in the comments! 💜


Comments

  1. Nicole RJuly 26, 2021 at 8:50 AM

    Ugh, sometimes those numbers can be so depressing. I can imagine how alarmed you might have been seeing such a high jump, but the safari windows make sense. I'm often surprised when I do a new google search and it opens a window to see I have 35 additional windows open. How?!? I chop it up to how I use my cell phone.
    *Search Google for answer to a question
    *Get website suggestions
    *May or may not click on a page
    *When answer is found, I hit the home button and turn off my screen.
    And unfortunately there's the mind numbing amount of time playing games. So embarrassing.

    ReplyDelete

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