Most of us know we’re probably on our phones too much.
Somewhere around six hours a day is fairly typical, with the average person unlocking their phone roughly twice every hour. Plenty of us have tried the usual fixes, screen time limits, app blockers, greyscale mode, only to quietly ignore them within a week. But new research suggests there might be a genuinely simple trick that actually works, and it’s got nothing to do with apps or willpower alone.
The idea behind the study was simple.
Researchers working across institutions in India and Spain wanted to find out whether the way a screen time goal gets set actually changes whether people stick to it. Their theory was straightforward: people who choose their own target might feel more invested in hitting it than people who are simply handed one by someone else.
Just under 150 volunteers took part in a 35-day trial, split into three groups. One group got to pick their own screen time reduction goal, choosing between a 10, 20, or 30 percent cut. A second group was simply told to aim for a fixed 14 percent reduction, no choice involved. A third group acted as a comparison, having their phone use tracked but with no target at all. Everyone with an actual goal to hit also received a small financial reward for each successful day, and their screen time was logged automatically rather than self-reported, which helps keep the results honest.
The group that picked their own goal did noticeably better.
The results were fairly striking. People who chose their own target cut their daily screen time by an average of 49 minutes, more than double the 23-minute reduction seen in the group who’d simply been assigned a number. The self-selecting group also hit their daily targets more consistently than the assigned group. Meanwhile, the group with no target at all actually increased their phone use slightly over the course of the study.
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The habit stuck around after the study ended.
What’s particularly encouraging is that the effect didn’t just disappear once the financial incentive stopped. Researchers kept tracking everyone for a further 28 days after the main trial wrapped up, and people in the self-selected group were still using their phones about 16 minutes less per day than they had been at the very start. The assigned-goal group also held onto some of their progress, though a bit less. The no-goal group, on the other hand, ended up using their phones slightly more than when the study began.
Does less phone time actually make you feel better?
The study also asked participants to fill in wellbeing questionnaires, and hitting screen time targets did seem to be linked with feeling better overall. That said, fewer people completed this part of the study, and the difference between the self-selected and assigned groups wasn’t strong enough to draw firm conclusions from. Still, the general pattern lines up with the idea that cutting down on phone use could genuinely help how some people feel day to day, even if that particular finding needs more evidence behind it.
Why picking your own goal might matter so much
Researchers have a few theories about why self-chosen targets worked so much better. It’s possible that having ownership over a goal naturally boosts motivation and commitment to it, since it feels like your own decision rather than someone else’s rule. It’s also possible that people are simply better at judging what’s realistic for their own lives than an outsider setting a blanket target for everyone. Either way, it’s worth remembering this was a fairly small study over a relatively short period, so bigger, longer research would help confirm whether the effect holds up more broadly. Still, it points to a refreshingly simple, completely free way to actually cut down on scrolling, just pick your own number rather than following someone else’s.
