
Using Apple’s New Controls to Limit a Teenager’s iPhone Time - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/11/technology/personaltech/apple-iphone-screen-time.html
======
danso
It's interesting to me, though not surprising, the the author is so surprised
that a software/UI feature could be successful in reducing usage. As if being
addicted to phone/software were an inextricable psychological/physiological
characteristic/flaw.

I used to use Reddit and Facebook a lot more regularly -- more than daily. But
ever since I changed my password to something that I can't recall without a
password manager, and added 2-factor auth, I rarely get on just because the
lack of ease of use is enough deterrence. Ever since I did a system wipe a few
weeks ago, I haven't checked facebook at all because I can't be bothered to
get into my password manager.

Though if I were being honest, I now have the meta problem of forcing myself
to throw away the keys. I did the same thing with Twitter, even removing it
from my phone. Then I reinstalled and logged in because I wanted to stay up to
date on a current event one day. Now for a week I've been putting logging out
and deleting my cookies.

~~~
tequila_shot
I did something similar. I simply deleted my Facebook, Messenger and
Instragram apps from my phone. Never went back.

~~~
danso
Deleting from the phone is the real engagement killer. I can usually get
focused on work when I'm on my laptop. And unlike with a phone, I can't
reflexively and compulsively use my laptop when waiting in line, walking
around, or getting up/going to bed.

~~~
tareqak
I removed the Twitch App and a bunch of CCGs (collectible card games) from my
phone. I'm still surprised to have a lot more time to myself again on a per
day basis as well as the reduced burden of having to login to get bonuses or
finish off a bunch of accrued daily quests so that I could have room for new
ones.

I personally think on some level that one of the things (if not the only
thing) that will make or break my generation is whether or not enough people
reach the milestone of recognizing attention as finite resource (both
attention in general and individual's own attention).

1) You can't do something about it if you don't know.

2) You can't know if you have no way of becoming aware.

3) You can't become aware if you're always distracted such that you don't
receive sufficiently effective exposure.

~~~
some_account
The real world is very boring so people escape into virtual worlds.

I think a good solution for this is to make the real world a fun, good place
but that requires real friends, a great job, lots of interests and energy
after work etc. Everything most people don't have due to the need to get a job
for money and go there every day.

If human leaders would be 100 points smarter on the emotional scale, we would
put efforts into building great societies where people can enjoy their lives.
Put tons of money into using tech to automate really boring jobs at a scale
never seen before, and letting people study for free etc.

------
thermodynthrway
You would think a teenager with a job could just get their own phone plan. I'm
kinda thankful helicopter parenting is being undermined by technology
(internet+Uber), maybe one day we will get back to reasonable parenting
practices they had back in the 60's-70's.

We don't let our kids roam the neighborhood anymore even though it's a
magnitude safer than it was decades ago. I don't understand how we expect kids
to start acting like grown ups between 18-20 when they've been treated like
babies until then.

I was working at 14 and driving wherever by 16. By the time I was in college I
was completely independent. Maybe 50% of my friends never even had a job and
had no idea how to do laundry or take care of themselves.

If my parents said they were limiting my internet I would've laughed in their
face

~~~
reaperducer
_I 'm kinda thankful helicopter parenting is being undermined by technology_

I wish. I know people in their late 30's who are on their parent's cell phone
plan, and have tried (unsuccessfully) to get on their health insurance.

~~~
wink
I know tons of people here in Germany who have had their cars officially
running with their parents' insurance well into their late 20s (basically as
long as possible because it was simply like half the price), at least until
some years ago.

We also have this health insurance thing where you can be insured with your
parents up until 25 I guess, if you're still going to school or university.

Maybe your point is "people should stand on their own feet at some point" and
maybe I'm not weighing 20s vs 30s enough.. but to me that simply sounds like
saving money. Hell, if I had had my parents living close to me in my late 20s
and being able to save money just by having some contracts in common, I
would've done it.

~~~
systemtest
If you have a car on your parents insurance, you are not building up your
"damage free years". So it's better to just pay for the high insurance at a
young age so you will enjoy low insurance later on in life. At 26 I was
already at the maximum of 80% discount on my car and motorcycle insurance.

~~~
maccard
It's cheaper for my younger brother to be on my parents insurance until he's
~25, and _then_ start building a no claims bonus than it is to start building
the NCB now. Paying €1200/year for 4 years and then taking out his own policy
starting from fresh is cheaper than paying €3000+ for his own policy and it
gradually decreasing over the next 4 years.

~~~
systemtest
I guess it depends on the country and insurer. I insured my moped by myself at
the age of 16. Paid €150 per year which was a lot of money for me. When I
bought my first car at the age of 22 I only had to pay €300 per year for
liability because my no-claims bonus was almost at the maximum amount.

~~~
wink
Yeah it absolutely depends, I've seen a lot of calculation models so please
don't take anything I wrote above as advice, was just trying to show a
different side.

FWIW, for me it was: car insured with parents until I was like 23 I think, and
those first 4-5 years were cheaper by A LOT. And then I could still claim my
"no accident/damages in 5 years" fee reduction, although maybe not as much as
I could've gotten. But money was a bit tight, so it wasn't really a question
of "will this save me something in 10 years" more like "I prefer to have a car
(first own, cheap one)" over "nope, no car".

------
chris_mc
> “It was just a pattern for me — to open my phone and I would have nowhere to
> go,” she said. “I was just looking at a screen. It was kind of weird, so I’m
> trying not to do that.”

I found out I did the exact same thing when I deleted my Reddit account and
set limits here on HN. I used to find myself unlocking my phone, looking at
it, opening Google News to the same old articles, then locking it and doing
something else. I have gotten much more stuff done now that I don't stare at
Reddit/HN/other all day.

I feel like society should try to back away from being slaves to our
technology, and maybe the popping of the social media bubble, via people
realizing how much data they collect, may be the trick to do this.

~~~
derefr
Have you ever tried reading e-books? I've replaced most of my "on break" or
"during commute" social-media time with plain reading of long-form content.

I wouldn't describe myself as "being a slave to technology"—I just wanted
something to entertain me when I had nothing to do. Social media was a bad way
to fill that hole, in terms of the emotional costs. Books are a better way to
fill that hole. Even if both just look like "staring at your phone screen"
from the outside.

~~~
reaperducer
_Have you ever tried reading e-books? I 've replaced most of my "on break" or
"during commute" social-media time with plain reading of long-form content._

I tried that, and it didn't work for me because it's just too easy to switch
to another time-absorbing app if the phone is already in my hand.

But I did something similar: I started reading _actual_ books.

The key was to buy used paperbacks for $1 from low-end bookstores. That way I
can carry it around and not worry about it, and if it gets lost or damaged, no
big deal.

When I'm done with it, I leave it on the bus or train for someone else to
find.

~~~
zwily
I carry a Kindle around with me for reading for two reasons: First, cause you
can’t just switch to something else stupid. And second, cause you look like
you’re reading a book to the people around you.

------
sturmeh
I feel like this is a oddly biased study, as there are two major influencing
factors that would have changed Sophie's behaviour.

1\. The limits, creating a hard limit, obviously screen time is going to
reduce, you can also make my battery a 10th of the size and achieve the same
result, it doesn't mean I'm better off or happier.

2\. The surveillance. The writer, as a complete stranger to the teenager (for
the most part) tracking her daily usage AND commenting on it whilst sharing it
with her mother, is enough to change her behaviour dramatically.

I'd like to see how well self imposed limits work, and if there's any
beneficial change people notice.

~~~
salvar
It's a father setting rules for his daughter (and himself while he's at it).
Of course it's biased. What's odd about that? I'd understand if this was
published as a study, but it's literally a NY Times article telling a story.

~~~
300bps
You may have missed this part of the article near the beginning:

“Just one problem: I don’t have a child, so I needed to borrow one.
Fortunately, my editor gleefully volunteered her 14-year-old, Sophie, to be a
test subject.”

~~~
salvar
Ah, I did. Thanks. I thought it was a writer/editor couple with a child.

------
cbhl
Reminder that you can go to /user and set maxvisit and minaway if you're using
HN too much.

~~~
baxtr
I had that option for a while and got annoyed by it. I turned it off, because
it was often activated right before submitting or commenting (I know it gets
saved and won’t get lost but still).

What I do now instead: Before picking up the phone/going online, I force
myself to give myself a short reason what I want to do and why. This loop
helps me to avoid 50% of pick-ups, which is not perfect, but not bad either.

------
bcheung
Along related lines, I noticed just removing notifications from the lock
screen greatly reduces phone usage. I also set my phone on do not disturb the
majority of the time unless I'm expecting a call. I estimate I cut my time
10x.

That being said, I think screen time is only an approximate message. I spend
tons of time on the computer every day but a lot of it is very productive
learning online courses, work, and hobby programming projects. I wouldn't
count that time towards something I want to avoid.

------
visarga
For years I tried limiting the screen time of my kids (back when iPhone was at
versions 4 and 5). Never could manage to do it properly. My kids would always
hack it. I concluded that Apple's interest in having kids spend as much time
(and money) on the phone is opposite to mine and that's why they didn't allow
proper parental controls. Now I just ask for the phone in the evening and give
it back the next day. So much for "high tech". Seems that Apple finally woke
up and did something about this. Asking a kid not to abuse the phone is like
putting a large bag of chocolates in their room and saying "eat responsibly!".

~~~
CptMauli
I think with chocolate its much easier to practice restraint. My children have
access to endless sweets, but they seldom take advantage of it. But with the
iPad its a different ballgame.

~~~
JTbane
I still eat too much chocolate as an adult sometimes- the stomach aches remind
me not to indulge too much.

------
ajiang
Fascinating article that suggest two things to me:

1) The impact of such tools is heavily affected by the individual. Sophie's
personal awareness and will power seem incredibly strong. As she is the child
of a NYT editor, this doesn't seem surprising.

2) If people are demanding tools to help them limit their screen consumption
time, brands will need to rely more heavily on 'IRL' ways to get in front of
consumers (e.g. experiences, events, etc.)

------
Teknoman117
For me, the thing that triggers my phone usage for the most part is
notifications. So, I ended up disabling all of them except for a few people I
need to be able to hear from (family) and slack messages from my work org. I
look at my phone little enough that my OnePlus 3 will last two days.

Now, the most anoying thing about this approach is when apps don't want you to
disable notifications and constantly complain about it. Facebook Messenger for
instance. You have a banner always visible in the list of chats that says
"notifications are off, tap here to enable.". I KNOW they are off, I did it on
purpose, and there's no way of getting rid of it.

~~~
duckerude
Can't you disable them on the system level? On my Android device, sliding a
notification slightly to the side reveals a button to block all of the app's
notifications.

~~~
saagarjha
Yes, that's what he did. The issue was that Messenger would detect that he had
turned off notifications for the app and nag him to turn it back on in-app.

------
denimalpaca
Pro-tip if you use your phone too much: Carry a book or Kindle around, and
when you look idly at your phone, put it in your pocket and read instead.

------
fipple
My solution:

1) Delete all my time waster apps except Kindle

2) Keep at least 3 books and 2 audiobooks in progress at once

3) any time I want to kill time, read the books

~~~
justMoritz
I also like to read random wikipedia articles in different languages to
compare information

------
commandlinefan
So they'll switch from using their iphone to watching TV, playing their XBox,
or getting on the computer.

~~~
kolpa
None of those devices work on busses, cars, or hallways.

~~~
1996
I would like to introduce you to "portable video games" like the PSP

~~~
Angostura
How's the instagram client on that, these days?

~~~
1996
touche :-)

The social networks are what may be drawing most teens, but if they are bored
and just wasnt to waste time, I guess anything will do (even old videogames)

------
saagarjha
I turned this on the first week of the beta, but then I just ended up spending
more time on my computer. I'd really love for Apple to bring this to macOS as
well.

------
Tepix
Sounds like it works as intended.

Soo.. is there something equivalent for Android? If not, is something coming
for Android P?

~~~
aldanor
Quick googling yields
[https://families.google.com/familylink](https://families.google.com/familylink)
\-- would that do?

------
newswriter99
Not trying to overly criticize, nitpick or detract from the point of the
story, but is that really a headline that belongs at a journalism publication
like The New York Times?

~~~
wlesieutre
IMO it's newsworthy that this feature is going to exist and a lot of people
outside of the tech world have no idea unless someone tells them about it.
We've been reading about "phone addiction" in newspapers for ages, now there
are tools to help manage it.

If you're a parent of teenagers with iPhones this is a pretty big story and
the headline at least answers the implied "did it work?" question instead of
trying to bait you with it.

