For the month of March, I tracked my phone usage. I wanted to see exactly where I was spending most of my time on my phone because my daily usage is on the high side when compared with others (like Elisabeth, who regularly spends just 1-1.5 hours on her phone daily, which is astonishing to me!) Even if my phone usage is high, does that really matter if I’m spending it doing things that bring me joy, like listening to podcasts and playing Happy Color? How does my phone usage really break down when I take an entire month into account? These were the questions I wanted to answer.
Each day, I wrote down the overall time spent on my phone as well as the number of pickups I did and notifications I received. And then I broke down every app and how much time I spent on them that day. Here’s what March 1st looked like:
Then, I started another tab in my spreadsheet where I listed out my apps in specific categories and would input the total number (in minutes) per day. Yes, it was a very intensive process and I was very happy when April 1st rolled around and I didn’t have to worry about continuing detailing my phone usage in this way!
At the end of the month, I tallied up all of my numbers and it gave me this breakdown:
Here is what all of these categories entail:
- Phone Games (41%) – Happy Color, Candy Crush Soda, Match 3D, 1010!, and Wordscapes. (These are my favorite phone games to play!)
- Listening Apps (24%) – Overcast (podcast app), Libby (audiobooks), YouTube (ASMR videos to fall asleep), and Spotify.
- Social Media (12%) – Instagram, Facebook, Feedly, Goodreads, Messenger, and Patreon.
- Reading (8%) – Serial Reader, CNN, and Chrome (which I use as my web browser).
- Social (8%) – Marco Polo (video app I use to keep in touch with friends), Messages, Mail, Phone, and Maps. (Funnily enough, FaceTime is not counted as “screen time” by Apple.)
- Productivity (3.5%) – Apps that I only really use for a purpose, like Notes, Clock, Calculator, Settings, and Todoist.
- Photos (2%) – Lightroom (how I edit photos), Camera, and Photos.
- Shopping (1%) – Starbucks, Ubereats, and Target.
- Health (1%) – My Wahoo app, which is what I use to track my cadence on my spin bike, and Sleep Cycle, my alarm clock app.
- Work (>1%) – Just some work-related apps I have on my phone that I will use throughout the day if needed.
After looking over my data from March, it became clear to me that I spent a lot of time on very few apps. It also became clear that my phone was counting my time as double if I had a podcast playing on Overcast (or an audiobook on Libby) while also doing something on my phone like playing a game. And I spend a lot of time playing games while listening to a podcast. So that can skew my overall screen time.
There are five apps that I spend my most time on:
It’s not surprising that Happy Color is where I spend the most time. Most days, I spent over 2 hours on that app! (Happy Color is a coloring app and it brings me immense joy and comfort, lol.) It’s also not surprising that Overcast was my second-most-used app. I love listening to podcasts and listen for hours every day.
Want some other maybe-fun stats? I gotchu:
- On average, I pick up my phone 86 times a day.
- On average, I get 43 notifications a day.
- My highest phone usage day was Saturday, March 19th—8 hours, 58 minutes (!!!)
- My lowest phone usage day was Monday, March 14th—4 hours, 22 minutes
All in all, detailing my phone usage throughout the month was a good exercise and it helped me to better understand my phone habits. (For example, as much as I love Happy Color, I sometimes use it as a crutch to not do the things I need to do.) After seeing my phone stats, there are a few changes I made:
- I put time limits on Instagram (30 minutes) and Happy Color (90 minutes). These are two of the apps that I can sometimes spend too much time on, and it’s been so, so helpful to give myself this time limit.
- I limited notifications. I used to get push notifications for so many things, especially things I didn’t need. Now, I only get notified for CNN/ESPN breaking news alerts, my dating apps, phone/messages, and Ubereats.
- I changed my Do Not Disturb parameters to turn on from 9:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., dim my lock screen, and hide all notifications. When it turns on at night, it’s a signal to my brain to get to bed and in the morning, it’s a signal to not use my phone first thing.
I also want to get better about putting my phone in my bedroom to charge at night. It’s so easy for me to get sucked into coloring a page on Happy Color or scrolling through Instagram when I should be getting ready for bed.
What I learned most from looking at my phone usage throughout the month is to not beat myself up too much for how much time I spend on my phone. I spend a lot of time alone, and it makes sense that I would be on my phone during that time. When I get lonely, it helps to scroll through Instagram (sometimes) or to listen to a podcast and play Happy Color. If I had a partner or kids, I’d (hopefully) be on my phone a whole lot less. When I’m with friends or my family, my phone is always in my purse. One of my pet peeves is people who are on their phones (especially people who are texting on their phones!) around me, so I try my best not to do the same. If my phone is out, it’s usually because I’m taking pictures.
I’m glad I did this exercise and I’ve now turned off the Screen Time alerts that tell me how much phone usage has increased or decreased from week to week. I’m doing just fine.
Do you feel like you spend a lot of time on your phone? What is your most-used app?