The smartphone can get in the way of living a meaningful life. Finally help has arrived in, of all things, a smartphone app.
What if a tiny voice over your shoulder could tell you when it’s time to put down the phone and get some real work done? How about a guardian angel that could remind you it’s time to engage with the people around you, not the screen?
Meet Moment, a new iPhone app (and coming soon on Android).
The app, writes Allison Stadd in The Muse, “auto-tracks your phone usage without you even realizing it. Running quietly in the background, it collects data every time you open an app, scroll through your text messages, send a Snapchat, or use your phone for any other activity. Set up the app to track your usage and habits around the clock, or from a certain start time to end time (say, the length of your workday).
“Once you take stock of how much time you spend futzing with your phone, you can decide what’s reasonable—and what’s not—and set daily time limits with notifications for when you exceed your phone time cap. You can also set up ‘tiny reminders’ to pop up every, say, two minutes you spend scrolling through your phone, as a gentle nudge to put it down,” Stadd continues.
Really, we all need this.
Pew Research stats show that almost one in three adults says their phone is something “they can’t imagine living without.” Any casual observer can see that engagement on the phone screen has replaced live human contact for a good portion of our day.
And how ironic that the reminder to look up and engage with the world comes from the very thing that causes the disconnect in the first place. This, my friends, is a good thing….although your kids may not like the family dinner feature. (Be strong, parents. This stuff matters.)
Apologies in advance if I don’t answer your text right away; I’m in the moment, and it’s good here.