How to limit screen time on iPhone

How to dial back your screen time

We've all done it: lost entire days to the siren call of social media or mobile gaming, or even just binge-watching our favorite TV shows. While it's okay if it happens occasionally, chances are it happens more often than you'd like to admit.

And unfortunately that is quite normal.

Let's discuss the dangers of too much screen time, what healthy boundaries are, and how to hold yourself accountable.

Regardless, excessive smartphone use is linked to many negative effects on physical and mental health. This is far from an exhaustive list of harmful effects that overuse of digital devices has on the average person, but consists of the more well-studied phenomena.

Excessive use of screen time has been linked to the development of myopia – or myopia. It turns out that looking at screens for too long can physically change the structure of the eyeball, causing it to lengthen from front to back.

This elongation hinders the eye's ability to properly bend light, which is necessary for clear distance vision.

Some experts believe that by 2050 more than 50% of the people will have myopia. This is especially true for children whose eyes are more likely to deform with increased screen use.

Experts suggest that those who use digital devices – especially smartphones – are getting better at keeping the devices at a greater distance.

Apple's screen distance warning

Apple also has a setting to help with this. Any iPhone with Face ID can automatically remind you to keep the phone at least seven inches away from your face.

To enable this setting, you can follow the instructions below.

How to enable remote reminders

1. Open the Institutions app
2. Crane Screen time
3. Crane Screen distance
4. Switch on Screen distance

Now, hold on tight iPhone closer than 12 inches will cause a full-screen reminder to appear, reminding you to pull your phone further away from your face. This setting can help reduce eye strain and reduce the risk of myopia in children.

In addition to myopia, excessive screen use causes a significant increase in chronic dry eyes. When we use smartphones and tablets, we blink significantly less, which is a big problem.

It turns out you have to blink quite a bit. Blinking acts like a windshield wiper that removes irritants and rehydrates the eye, and the blinking itself signals that your body is starting to produce tears at all.

So if you blink less, you produce fewer tears, which can cause your tear glands and tear ducts to atrophy, causing less eye fluid to be produced overall.

Again, the risk is greatest in children, but chronic dry eye also increases in adults.

Smartphones haven't been around for long, but they are already having an impact on our mental health. Although studies are still in their early stages, many studies show that increased smartphone use is strongly correlated with the development of depression, anxiety, and even suicidal ideation.

Such as the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University has pointed out, a constant stream of notifications and updates can lead to anxiety. This is often referred to as FOMO – or fear of missing out – among younger users. It leads them to believe that they will be left out of cultural and social moments if they do not engage in the same behaviors they see on their timeline.

It's not just the fear of missing out, though. It is also an increasing feeling of isolation and inadequacy. It's easy to feel inadequate when you're presented with polished Instagram feeds of beautiful vacations, polished outfits, and smiling faces.

However, it is important to realize that you are being presented with something that is visually appealing and not realistic.

Smartphones in themselves are not necessarily a bad thing. They help us stay connected to loved ones, allow us to capture special moments with a handy camera and keep us safe in dangerous situations.

The platforms this has created, however, are a different story.

Social media is designed to be addictive by constantly learning what you are likely to look at and then showing you more of it. Therefore, your feed will look different from any other you know. This is largely done to keep you scrolling and to ensure that you view as many ads as possible.

Mobile gaming is another place where addiction is highly relevant. Blind-box or gacha-style games encourage users to spend money for the chance to acquire rare game items and characters, just as a scratch-off ticket offers the promise of a cheap windfall.

Although many mobile games are free, they offer players incentives to make in-app purchases

As with scratch cards, it is easy for gamers to spend a lot of money without realizing it, as it is often rationalized as a relatively cheap purchase that a user can create multiple times.

Again, this is most dangerous in people under 25 years of age. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for impulse control, is not yet fully developed in that age group.

It is also especially dangerous for people who have problems with any form of impulse control. This includes people with substance abuse disorders, mental health conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and major depressive disorder, and neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and autism.

So you might be wondering what's next. It's important to note that we're not suggesting you go completely off-grid and drop your iPhone. iPad, or computer in the nearest large body of water. We don't even recommend deleting your X and Instagram accounts.

But as the saying goes: everything in moderation. Learning to step away from screens whenever possible has countless benefits for your physical and mental health. Sure, it will probably be difficult at first, but it won't always be that way.

Our first suggestion is to become aware of your current screen time habits. Apple automatically tracks your screen time on your iPhone and iPad. Knowing how much you use your devices can help you determine where to go.

To check your screen time on iPhone and iPad, you can open it Institutions app and then tap Screen time.

Apple allows you to view detailed statistics about your iPhone's screen time and app usage

There you'll see a quick overview of how often you use your devices, and you might be surprised at how often you use them.

Experts recommend that you get two hours of “personal” screen time per day, which isn't limited to just using your phone. This applies to all screens: gaming, phones, web browsing and TV.

If your numbers are particularly high, we recommend starting with a modest decline. 'Cold Turkey' is one of the worst ways to break a habit or addiction.

For example, if you have eight hours of personal screen time every day, find out where you can set certain limits. We recommend limiting time on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X.

This is how you set screen time limits per app on iPhone and iPad

1. Open the Institutions app
2. Crane Screen time
3. Crane App limits
4. Crane Add limit
5. Tap the app category you want to restrict
6. Tap the app you want to restrict
7. Set the time limit you consider reasonable. We initially recommend a reduction of 10-15%
8. Crane Add

You can also set specific times when all apps except the ones you specify are locked. This is called 'downtime'.

Activate downtime

Set up iPhone and iPad downtime

1. Open the Institutions app
2. Crane Screen time
3. Crane Downtime
4. Crane Enable downtime
5. Set the hours you want downtime to occur

By default, the Phone app, Messages and Apple cards are the only apps enabled during downtime. However, in the Screen time menu, where you can select apps Always allowed enabled during downtime.