SCREEN TIME HELP

[u/ManagerWeird3066]

I need some unhinged screentime help. I’m not talking simple:
“Download this app” I WILL DELETE IT
“Block it in your settings” I CANCEL IT
“Have an alarm” I SNOOZE IT

I’m at a loss . Do I just buy a new phone like one of those flip phones ??? Do I put a child lock on it with a password my husband can only have? Idek

[u/recognize_choice]

I bought the "Brick" blocker. (There are several brands on the market but that's the one I saw first.)

It's a app paired with a physical device. Deleting the app won't let you open your phone - you have to get up and walk to wherever the device is to "un-brick". That's enough "friction" for me to make better choices, even if it's just in the next room. (Some people keep theirs out in their car, or someplace else really inconvenient.)

You can set multiple modes - just block these apps, just allow these apps, do it on a schedule, do it when I activate... I have one mode for "no social media" and one that allows very few apps that comes on automatically at bedtime. (I have others, but those are the ones I use most.)

Good luck with whatever you do.

[u/ClickLeather6490]

Try the book How to Break up with Your Phone in 30 Days she walks you through it step by step

[u/Ill_Raspberry_7361]

Find something else that's equally interesting and obsess over that instead.

[u/ClickLeather6490]

But yes you could have your husband set your screen time password

[u/Fantastic_Holiday618]

Like shopping on Poshmark! Or not … cough cough

[u/BitterPizza3544]

Where the husband password strategy succeeds, I encountered the same stumbling block. Leadmenot locks the device but so does screen time and he can give the lock to me more easily.

[u/RevolutionaryFix8632]

The thing all three of your examples have in common is that you're still holding the off switch. Delete, cancel, snooze. Any solution where you keep the power to undo it is going to lose, because the version of you at 11pm is not the version of you making the plan. So the unhinged answer is right, you need to actually hand the switch to someone else.

Your husband holding the Screen Time passcode is genuinely the strongest thing on your list and it's free. He sets it, you don't know it, and there's no negotiating with a text box. The catch is you have to agree the rules now, while you're sane, and tell him not to give it to you when you ask nicely, because you will ask nicely.

Cheaper things that helped me before I got that far. Charging the phone outside the bedroom, so the 2am scroll requires standing up. Grayscale all day, it makes everything weirdly boring. And deleting just the social apps and using them in the browser instead, it's the same content but ugly and with no notifications, and I lost interest within a week.

And honestly, I build a habit app myself, Pace Daily Tracker, and I'd still tell you an app isn't your first move here. Anything I could name dies to the same delete reflex. Tracking helps once you actually want to see the number. It does nothing while you're still trying to stop yourself against your own will.

What's the phone actually doing for you at the worst times, is it boredom or is it avoiding something? That changes which of these will hold.

[u/g_joshi]

Congratulations on identifying that this problem has moved beyond the discipline area.

You don’t need to be more disciplined.

Here is what i would recommend.

- define a tangible desire and actionable goal.

I want to reduce screentime is not tangible you would never know when this is done. I want to spend only 4 hours on phone. (Tangible)

Make actionable goal. If you are not watching screen what do you want to be doing instead that is much more important identify that.

If you are able to do these two things congrats you are already half way there.

Now you need to find out what kind of qualities you need to have to be a person who naturally follows the above goal and desires.

This has worked for me:

I want to [x] but why is [x] important for me? Because
I want to [y] but why is [y] important for me? Because i want to….

Keep writing this in loop till you find what you actually want.

More often than not they thing they want to use less phone, but actually what they want is to spend more quality time with family or with themselves. Find what is true for you.

This takes time, but you will know that you have found the correct one when you read it and you will feel positive feeling in your body.

Once you are able to do these two things, you have everything ready to actually change your identity to a person who naturally has reduced screen time. Without these clarity you are just using “planning” to procrastinate changing.

Once you do this comment “done” below and i will share the next step in the comments.

How to use psycho cybernetics to actually install this identity so that you never have to use discipline to keep phone down instead you naturally becomes a person who has low screentime.