Our thinking

Phoney digital wellness

14 March, 2025

Each week, Apple’s screentime notification triggers a familiar cycle: a humbling moment of shame, disbelief at the hours lost to our phones (again), and a fleeting promise to do better—until the next WhatsApp message pops up, and we’re sucked right back in. 

By now, we all know the effect smartphones can have on our mental health. There are plenty of studies linking excessive screen time to anxiety and depression, and to developmental issues in children, supporting the idea that spending less time on your phone is often the answer to boost happiness. Yet, Apple and Google’s response to these concerns has been notably light. In 2018, they introduced Screen Time reports—weekly stats on phone usage, app time, and pickups. But beyond creating a moment of guilt and, of course, more screentime, the reports offer no real solutions or follow-up actions, and no tools to break compulsive habits. If Apple and Google really did want us to spend less time, they could do much more to help us by harnessing well understood behaviour change mechanics. 

In their absence, third-party apps are doing a far better job of tackling phone addiction. Forest gamifies focus, letting you grow a virtual tree that dies if you leave the app. One Sec makes you pause before opening an app, even activating your front camera so you can look yourself in the eye before choosing to enter a doomscroll session. You’ll even have better luck by making manual changes to your phone yourself, like changing it to grayscale, or deleting apps, so there’s really nothing appealing on it.  

It’s easy to feel stuck in the grip of our phones, with companies like Apple and Google, failing to use their power to help. But it’s worth looking around at all the apps who have spent more time understanding what causes genuine behaviour to change and how it is actually possible to extricate ourselves from our phones, in ways that don’t involve screentime. 

By Rosie Serlin