Cut down on screen time.

What a plan looks like

One plan, from Screen time · 4 hr a day to zero at the steady pace, week by week.

What it costs

At those numbers, the hours add up to:

Screen time · 4 hr a day

a week

28 hours

a year, awake and on a screen

91 days

Try your own numbers in the cost calculator. What it costs a year, at every level.

What tends to help

1. Log the sessions that were not a decision, like the red light, the checkout line, the twenty minutes in bed.
2. Delete the app, keep the account. The website is slower and worse, which is exactly the point.
3. Turn the screen grayscale. The feed gets noticeably less interesting when it stops being colorful.
4. Charge the phone outside the bedroom. For most people the first and last hour of the day is the single biggest block.
5. Leave something else within arm’s reach: a book on the pillow, an instrument by the sofa.

Instead of it

• Book within reach. Whatever is closest to your hand is what you will pick up.
• Podcast or an album. Keeps the input, gives your eyes back.
• Ten minutes of making something. Consuming and making scratch the same itch differently.
• Walk without it. Leave the phone at home once and see how the walk goes.

Worth knowing about

• Screen Time or Digital Wellbeing. Already on your phone, already free, and it counts more honestly than you will. Set app limits there and log the total here.
• A grayscale shortcut. iOS and Android both let you triple-click or double-tap to drain the color out. The feed gets noticeably less compelling.
• A cheap alarm clock. The only real reason the phone sleeps next to you. Ten pounds or dollars buys back the first and last hour of the day.
• Something else within reach. Whatever is nearest your hand is what you pick up. Put a book on the pillow and the phone in the hall.

Curb takes no money for anything listed here, and none of these are affiliate links. General guidance, not medical advice. A doctor or pharmacist can tell you what fits your situation.