Android Has a New Tool to Help Curb Your Tech Addiction
Most of us could probably use some help reducing our dependence on our phones. Digital Wellbeing is a screen time monitoring tool built into Android phones, and Google has quietly released a new feature for it called Screen Time Reminders. These reminders act as gentle nudges to encourage you to be more mindful of how you use your device, and appear when you spend a lot of time in a particular app.
The tool is currently available on Pixel devices and other Android devices , and you don’t have to do anything special to get it—the feature will simply appear on your phone when you access the deployment.
Here’s how to use Screen Time Reminders, as well as other related features in Digital Wellbeing.
Set up screen time reminders
If you’ve never used Digital Wellbeing before, you’ll find it in your Android’s Settings app; search for Digital Wellbeing and Parental Controls . You’ll see detailed information about how you used your phone today: what apps you used, the number of notifications you received, and the number of times you unlocked your phone. Click View Class Details for more information and to view previous days.
Tap Screen Time Reminders on the Digital Wellbeing home screen and you’ll get an explanation of how the feature works. Google describes the reminders as “random”—there’s no set time period after which they appear, and you can’t control how often they appear. Click “Enable” if you want to try it.
You can return to the Screen Time Reminders page if you want to turn off this feature later and specify which apps it will be used for. Uncheck the box next to any app you don’t want to use reminders with (like apps you use for work or your podcast app) and you won’t be bothered.
According to unofficial data, reminders appear after 15-25 minutes of using the application and are displayed in the form of a panel with signs at the top of the screen. You can tap this bar to see how long you’ve been using an app and turn off reminders for that specific app if you want. It appears to be designed as a gentle mindfulness tool that will help you develop healthier app-using habits without being too intrusive or too prescriptive about what you can do once you receive a reminder.
You can set time limits for apps in Digital Wellbeing.
There are other controls in Digital Wellbeing that allow you to set how much time you want to spend in each app on your Android device per day. The new Screen Time reminders described above work independently of these other settings—you can activate these reminders regardless of whether you’ve set other limits.
To set a time limit for an app on the Digital Wellbeing screen, tap App Limits and select one of your installed apps. Tap an app’s name and you’ll see how much time you’ve spent using it recently. You’ll see stats for screen time, opening times, and notifications received on a daily or hourly basis.
To add some controls, tap App Timer . The time limit can be set from 5 minutes to 23 hours and 55 minutes within every 24 hours, giving you more flexibility. The app will go into grayscale a minute before the time limit expires, and when the limit is reached, you won’t be able to use the app for the rest of the day. You can, of course, simply go back to Settings and remove the restriction, but this job will at least require you to think about your screen habits.
If you need such a restriction, it’s easy to set up, but if you prefer something less black and white, screen time reminders are a worthy compromise. You can also set limits for some apps and reminders for others if the combination works best for you.