How to reduce screen time on Android

The short version: open Settings, tap Digital Wellbeing, and look at which apps take your time. Then set an app timer on the worst two or three, turn off their notifications, and move them off your home screen. These built-in tools are free and work for many people. If you find yourself deleting the timer every evening, add friction that is harder to undo, or a rule that asks for something before the app opens.

First, a note on menus

The steps below use the names on Google’s Android Help pages, which match Pixel phones. Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus and other makers change the menus. Google’s own help pages say settings can vary by phone. On recent Samsung Galaxy phones, for example, the menu is also called Digital Wellbeing, but the bedtime feature is called Sleep mode and lives under Modes and Routines. If a step doesn’t match your phone, use the search bar at the top of Settings and type the feature name.

Step 1: see where the time goes

Open Settings and tap Digital Wellbeing. The chart shows your use today. Tap it to switch between three views: screen time per app, times opened (how often you unlocked the phone), and notifications received.

Look at a full week before you change anything. Most people find that two or three apps account for most of the total. Those are the ones to work on. If you want Digital Wellbeing in your app list for quick checks, turn on Show icon in the app list on the same screen.

Step 2: set app timers

1. Open Settings and tap Digital Wellbeing.
2. Tap App timers.
3. Next to the app you want to limit, tap Set timer.
4. Choose a time and tap OK.

When you run out of time, the app closes and its icon dims. The timer resets at midnight. Google notes that some work and school accounts don’t work with app timers. On Samsung phones the path is App timers, then Apps and app categories, and you can set different limits for different days.

Pick a number you can keep. In a 2018 experiment with 143 undergraduates, the group asked to keep Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to 10 minutes each a day for three weeks reported less loneliness and depression than the group that carried on as usual. It was a small study of students, and the authors said it may not apply to other ages or apps, but it suggests a limit of about 30 minutes a day across social apps is a reasonable place to start.

Step 3: use Focus mode for set hours

Focus mode pauses a group of apps at once. Go to Settings, Digital Wellbeing, Focus mode, and choose the apps to pause. While it’s on, you can’t open them and you don’t get their notifications. You can set a schedule, for example weekday mornings while you work. Focus mode isn’t on every phone.

There is a catch. To unpause your apps for a while, you tap Take a break and choose how long. That’s useful when you need an app for a minute, and it’s also the button you’ll press when you just want to scroll.

Step 4: turn on Bedtime mode and grayscale

Go to Settings, Digital Wellbeing, Bedtime mode. You can run it on a schedule or turn it on while the phone charges at night. It can switch the screen to grayscale, keep the screen dark, dim the wallpaper and turn on dark theme. Grayscale makes feeds look flat, which some people find takes the pull out of them.

Bedtime mode changes how the phone looks. It doesn’t lock any app. If your problem is scrolling in bed, read our guide on how to stop doomscrolling before bed, which covers sleep in detail.

Step 5: cut the notifications

Each notification is an invitation to open the app. Go to Settings, Notifications, App notifications. Apps that sent you something recently are at the top. Tap an app and turn its notifications off. Keep messages from people, and turn off likes, suggested posts and “you might have missed” alerts. The notifications view in Digital Wellbeing tells you which apps send the most.

Step 6: take the apps off your home screen

Touch and hold the app icon, then drag it to Remove. That takes it off the home screen only. Uninstall deletes the app, and some phones show one option, some both. Once the icon is gone, opening the app means searching for it in the app list, which is a small delay and often enough to break the automatic thumb-to-icon habit. For the apps you could live without, uninstalling and using the website in a browser adds more friction still.

For kids: Family Link

Google Family Link lets parents set daily limits and downtime on a child’s Android device. When time is up the device locks, though the child can still take calls.

Why built-in timers often don’t hold

The weakness of every tool above is that you can undo it in seconds. Google’s help page says it plainly: to use the app again before midnight, delete the app timer. Focus mode has its Take a break button. A removed icon is one search away. When you set the limit you are calm and planning. When you hit it you are tired and want the feed, and that version of you holds the off switch.

That doesn’t make the tools useless. Small obstacles work better than you’d expect. In a 2023 study of the app one sec, which shows a short pause and a choice before a chosen app opens, 280 people opened their target apps 57% less over six weeks. A follow-up experiment with 500 people found that the option to cancel the open had the strongest effect, and the message alone did little. The pause gives you a moment to choose, and often that moment is enough.

When a third-party app makes sense

If the built-in tools work for you, stop there. They cost nothing, and so does charging the phone in another room or keeping a paper book on the table where your phone used to be. A third-party app is worth it when you keep switching the free tools off.

There are two broad kinds. Blockers lock apps on a schedule or timer and often have strict modes that are harder to turn off. Reading app blockers lock apps until you’ve read, so the time you take back goes somewhere. We compare the options in the best reading app blockers, and if you mostly want to quit one app, see apps that lock Instagram until you read. If you want to understand the urge itself, read why you can’t stop scrolling and how to stop mindless scrolling.

Where FirstPage fits

FirstPage is a reading app blocker for Android. It replaces a timer with a reading goal.

• Locked until you’ve read. Pick the apps to lock (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Reddit or any app) and set a daily goal in pages or minutes. Until you’ve read today’s goal, opening a locked app shows how many pages are left and a button back to your book. You can unlock early, but your brain mascot loses 10 XP each time, so skipping the book has a small cost.
• Reading windows. Set a time such as 10pm with a reminder. With more than one window a day (a Pro feature), your apps lock again at the start of each window until you’ve read for it.
• A lock on purpose. You can lock everything for 30 minutes, 1 hour or 2 hours when you need to work or sleep.
• Reading next to scrolling. Stats show your reading time next to your time on social apps, day by day.
• A reader built in. Open your own EPUB and PDF files, or pick a free classic from Project Gutenberg.

The lock is optional, so you can use it only as a reading habit app with a goal, streak and reminders. The free version covers two locked apps, one book and one reading window. FirstPage is on Google Play; the iPhone version isn’t out yet, and there’s a waitlist.

Sources

• Android Help, Digital Wellbeing on Android (screen time, app timers, Focus mode, Bedtime mode).
• Pixel Tablet Help, Digital Wellbeing.
• Android Help, Turn notifications on or off.
• Android Help, Add, move or remove Home screen items.
• Samsung US Support, Use Digital Wellbeing features on your Galaxy phone or tablet.
• Google For Families Help, Family Link screen time limits.
• Hunt et al., Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2018. No More FOMO: limiting social media decreases loneliness and depression; Penn Today, study summary and limits.
• Grüning et al., PNAS, 2023. Directing smartphone use through the self-nudge app one sec.

This guide is general information, not medical advice. If phone use is affecting your mood, sleep or work, talk to a doctor.