The Best App to Help You Stay Away From Your Phone
While we work hard to offer you various ways to hack your technology to make it more effective and enjoyable, sometimes the most rewarding way to hack is to just stay away from it, especially with our smartphones.
So last week I tried to find an app that encourages more careful phone use by experimenting with Moment, Mute, and Forest. Moment and Mute are trackers that “analyze” the time you spend on your phone and allow you to set limits for different apps or times if you download the premium version for $ 3.99. Forest, which costs $ 1.99 for iOS , actively helps you stay away from your phone for a certain amount of time. You choose a period of time, say, 20 minutes or an hour, and the application “grows” a tree that dies if at this time you go to your phone. If you stay out of the way, you can build a digital forest.
I consider myself quite self-controlled and less technologically advanced than many people my age, and yet during the week I found myself reaching for my phone while doing something else, almost like a reflex. What to do, I’m not sure. Check the time? Look at the new push notifications? Just feel its weight? When I noticed that I was doing this, I could not say why, so I put it off.
However, I spent a decent amount of time on my phone, and all the apps couldn’t remind me of it. Constantly. Here’s what else they found.
Experiment
If you’re already feeling guilty about the amount of time you spend on your phone, I can’t say I recommend installing Moment or Mute, which are unforgiving.
Of the two, I liked Moment more than Silent, which seemed more accurate (although each had problems). One example: I woke up at 7:30 am on Tuesday morning. By 8:12 am, when I was on the subway, Mute told me that I had already been on the phone for an hour that day. You can imagine my confusion since I haven’t woken up for another hour (have I been asleep on twitter?) And apparently I have been preparing for a while without gluing my phone to my hand.
Later that day, Mute reported that I spent over two hours on the phone, while Moment only read 30 minutes. Considering that I read the book on the subway and worked on the article all morning, I take Moment’s word for it.
This continued until the end of the week. Every time I even looked at my phone, I was worried that the apps would count it against me. Every hour you use your phone, you get a notification like the one above with a judgmental emoji shaming you for using your smartphone. I don’t need this kind of negativity in my life.
As an already concerned person, I will not continue to use these apps (Mute has already been removed), especially at work, where I often need to use my phone to test apps (ahem) and use it to listen to Spotify or podcasts all day long.
Another thing I don’t like about Mute is that in order to access the app, you need to give it permission to track your location at any time, not just when you are using it. No thanks.
Winner
However, I really like Forest. I find this a much more rewarding, less stressful way to get things done, and I’m interested in watching my digital forest grow as I plant new trees and bushes. Lifehacker’s Beth Skoreki uses it at night when playing with her kids; I used it to focus on getting the job done (and I can cheat and sometimes plant a tree by doing things that can’t be on my phone, like exercise).
And if you pick up your phone, whether it’s out of habit, as I did, or to use it while your tree is moving, the app will give you encouraging messages to put it back on. Every time your tree grows, you get coins that you can use to buy different varieties of trees to diversify your forest.
In general, Forest was the clear winner for me. While Moment and Mute (especially) made me feel ashamed every time I used my phone, I liked Forest because it felt like a game. I was less tempted to use my phone because I just wanted my little trees to grow.