How I cut my screen time by 80%

I'm addicted to my phone but luckily for me the guardian has a 3-we newsletter that helps people like me and maybe you I don't know maybe you're not addicted maybe you're fine beat phone addiction ow I really do hope that this newsletter works because lately being on my phone all the time has made me feel really sad and empty anyway for week one I'm told by the newsletter to invite a friend get an alarm clock create a speed bump calculate my existing screen time and set goals all right let's do this and land and then

I'll make a fun cut one 2 3 I think that was silly this is my friend my dad okay now we're going to go get some alarm clocks do you even use an alarm clock no they didn't have any alarm clocks none all right alarm clock Acquired and now it's time time to add a speed bump to our phones the newsletter says we can add something like a hair tie or just a shaming screen saver basically anything that makes you think twice about wanting to use your phone I think I'll just make my screen black

so that anytime I go to pick it up I just see my face and it's like Shame Shame now let's go do some quick maths okay so what do I say to that all right our average screen time is just over 4 and 8 hours hours per day however apps like pelaton the camera and Spotify make our lives better so we're removing them from the calculation nice this now works out to 50 and 113 days per year oh God all right well let's go for a walk or something to help us get over the fact

that we're wasting our lives on our phones shall we I think we both thought we were on our phones to communicate with people but I don't think communic and connection is really what we're getting out of our screen time yeah no I think the intentions of social media was wonderful in terms of connecting with old friends and around the world but over time it ends up you know you spend a lot of time just scrolling through stuff that's mindless and uh no all right we've reflected solved the world's problems and set some goals the next

time you see us we'll be better people go team I'm so bad at that oh jeez all right let's see what do we got okay with helpful apps removed I was on my phone an average of 2 hours per day this week I spent a lot of time cooking reading and visiting friends so yeah I'd say week one was great how about you Dad yeah well I was down to 5 hours a day I read a lot I played a lot of guitar I walked and I saw friends more so I feel pretty good but

I can do better than that the most impactful thing for me was the alarm clock very cool isn't it I haven't had one of those since I was a kid and I really really like it speed bump worked for me cuz I got this growly face me on there so it is a good reminder and then actually calculating the time I I don't want to waste too many more years of this life I'm I'm not as young as you are you ready to see what week two has in store for us yeah I'm I'm actually

uh looking forward to week two I'm looking forward to a lot more than I thought I would I I think there's uh lots to this go te [Music] door open Okay so this week's all about making our phone's a tool and not a Temptation so now we have to delete our apps turn off notifications and kick the phone out of the bedroom well stop I want to Overlay the text right there think we can do it I think you can do it all right let's go bam okay I have 44 apps my phone and dad

has 168 but I don't use like very many of them all right well let's start deleting fun fact I actually deleted all search engines off my phone cuz I know that if I don't have Instagram I'll just Google Instagram I have a problem I know let's just see how this goes how many 106 now all right I have 30 oh shoot I just had it 1 2 3 4 39 good thanks now we're just silencing all of our notifications and all is fine and dandy the time has come to remove my phone from the bedroom

all right sorry bud you're no longer wanted here my friend I don't know where to put this here I'm in the kitchen plugging in my phone and saying good night phone see you in the morning all [Music] right week two is done and dusted and my screen time this week was 32 minutes or 5 minutes a day Dad mine was 2 hours and 56 minutes or 25 minutes a day a big game changer is kicking my phone out of the room oh hi it's just me here with my favorite purchase of 2024 my precious my

precious every day this week I went to the gym and went for a walk and didn't spend time playing on my phone in the morning oh I think it was really huge because I would just read and the other thing was for me cuz I wake up in the night sometimes and often I would get on the phone I don't do that now I also really like not having any apps on my phone that are Temptations Chrome was a bit annoying not to have ultimately I did my best to just remember what I was interested

in Googling I just got a pocketbook and if I remember it at the end of the day I would Google it on my computer and if not it just really wasn't relevant to my life anyway now for week three we are supposed to meditate every day and have one 24-hour day of no phones oh boy I think I could probably do without the phone for 24 hours but meditate I've never done that before me neither but I'm sure we'll be much better people after this so uh okay team what was I supposed to say go

team oh go hi I'm just gearing up to do a 5minute courage meditation with Kristen McGee okay I'm about to start my first ever 5 minute meditation this is new Uncharted Territory let's [Music] begin cool okay I do that again meditating is really nice and it's making me really look forward to the 24-hour no phone challenge I have something in mind for it but I got to make sure my dad's okay with it so let's see how that goes you know I want to do like a big finale for the video and I'm wondering if

you'd be interested in doing a 24-hour no phone camping trip tomorrow oh yeah okay I could do that I think yeah I haven't even asked Mom if I can go yet are you excited yeah I'm excited going camping hi are you are you excited I'm excited are you excited I'm excited this is the first trip that my dad and I have ever done with just the two of us and without distractions from the rest of the world we really just got to relax and enjoy each other's company and we never saw him again that is

after we found the Airbnb of course huh maybe up there I think we passed it turns out Google Maps and iPhones are still wonderful tools obviously parkour but over the last 3 weeks that's really all my phone has been a tool we did it did and as a result I haven't been able to distract myself from all the sad envious and lonely emotions that I usually ignore instead I just had to sit through them and in the long run sitting through negative emotions reading more books and spending more time with people that I really love

has made me feel so much better than any of the instant gratification that I usually get from my phone long story long The guardian's Weekly Newsletter which you can read as well by visiting the link in the description changed my life and now all there's left to do is complete the last couple hours of the 24-hour no phone challenge [Music] well the choir music was a choice yeah than okay well in three weeks I cut my screen time by 80% and this old guy cut his by 95% you know what that means celebrate no I

mean I guess it's a good thing we didat our phone addiction go t