Are you spending too much time on your phone?

Screen time is a hot topic for Google at the moment, with them recently announcing that all new Android phones must come with a ‘digital wellbeing’ app installed to show how long you’ve been using particular apps, how many notifications your apps have generated, and how many times they’ve been launched. For those with high usage, the figures could be alarming and have the potential to shock users into cutting back.

Additionally, they have developed a set of 6 experimental apps, with the aim to encourage you to spend less time staring at your phone screen.

If you are guilty of picking up your phone all too often and you want to give one of Google’s new apps a try then here are the details!

Unlock Clock

Unlock Clock helps you consider how often you are using your phone by counting and displaying the number of times you unlock your phone in a day. The number is displayed as a wallpaper, meaning each time you unlock your phone you are confronted with the reality of your usage!

Once downloaded from the Play Store, you can find it in your Live Wallpaper library rather than as an app.

We Flip

Are you ever with a group of friends or at a family gathering and are met with a crowd of faces stuck in their phones? Maybe it’s you that’s guilty of folding at the temptation to check the latest Facebook news while your company waits for your attention?

We Flip enables you to switch off from technology as a group, to spend quality time together. Simply wait for everyone to join the session via the app, place your phones face down and the first person to flip it round loses!

The idea is you introduce a forfeit for the losing member like getting the next round in or doing the dishes!

Post Box

Post Box helps you minimise distractions by holding your notifications until a time that suits you. Simply choose how often you’d like your notifications to be delivered. When they arrive, they’ll be neatly organised for you to go through.

Morph

Morph allows you to create modes for your smartphone such as ‘work’, ‘evening’ and ‘weekend’, helping you stay focused, by adapting your phone to what you are doing. Choose the apps you need access to in each mode – giving you just the right apps at just the right time.

Desert Island

Desert Island helps you find focus, by challenging you to go a day with only your essential apps. Simply pick the 5 apps that are most important to you, then give it a go for 24 hours.

Paper Phone

Mobile phones are no longer just a means of communicating. They are an entertainment hub and a personal organiser, taking the place of a diary by storing our notes and calendar appointments digitally rather than on good old-fashioned paper. In turn, a lot of people feel that they spend too much time on their phones and struggle to find a balance with technology.

Paper Phone helps you have a little break away from the digital world by allowing you to print a paper copy of all the important information you’ll need throughout your day, such as your calendar events and tasks.