Re-evaluating My Screen Time (& The 5 Apps I’ve Been Using)

The iPhone screen time monitor has existed for a while now. I find myself checking it from time to time, especially on the days when I feel like I really haven’t put my phone down. To be fair, a lot of the time it’s WhatsApp messages or video calls and I feel that’s acceptable to exclude from the ‘you’re attached your phone’ statement for now.

When screen time is mentioned, it tends to be associated with negativity. High screen time tends to equal hours and hours spent scrolling through social media like Instagram and Tiktok and it’s a fine balance, I’ll agree. (You can read my post about using social media here)

But social media aside, there are some good apps out there that will contribute to your screen time but are not such a bad thing. I’ve only realised how much I use certain apps during the last few (crazy) months. Here’s a quick rundown of some non social media apps I’ve been using.

1 SECOND A DAY

There seemed to be a hype for this at the start of the year and to be honest, I was late to the party – it was February when I downloaded it. But it actually is really good. In April, the only ‘seconds’ a day I uploaded were pictures of my dog, but that’s okay yknow, once I’d submitted the final university assignments (still not over the fact I’ve actually finished four years of academia), all I really did was walk the dog. The game changer to using this app is setting your camera to live photos, it works just the same as a one second video and often easier to remember.

HABIT

A new one for me, but I’m hoping that it’s going to keep me on track as we ease back into the ‘new normal’. One of my ‘life lessons’ from this time is to take the positive habits that I’ve picked up back into ‘reality’ (you can read this blog post here). The main ‘habit’ I want to maintain is keeping the steps high and going for walks. My fitbit tracks the number daily but by using Habit, I’ll be able to see how many times I’ve hit the specific goal over the week!

SPOTIFY

It’s a classic and by now, I can’t remember Spotify not being an app. Obviously I love it for being the ultimate CD player with all the music, but if you’ve been reading this blog over the last few weeks, I’m sure it’s no surprise when I say I LOVE A PODCAST. And Spotify does a good job at keeping me up to date with all the podcasts that I follow. I tend to also make a ‘downloads’ podcast so if I’m on a dog walk with no signal (countryside living), it’s no problem if I finish one before the end of my walk.

VSCO

This has quite quickly become my favourite photo editing app. It’s just very easy to use! If you’re an amateur at photos, like myself, the presents are so good for making small differences to the photo you’ve taken. It’s not a day-to-day app, nor do I spend lots of time using it but it is a good one to feel creative and see an end result with the photos.

TABATA

This is probably one of the best free stopwatch apps I’ve used. As I’ve been making time to motivate myself with home workouts, this has been making life simple. You’ve got all the measures in terms of exercise interval, rest interval, number of sets to use and as it counts down from the timings that you’ve set, it’s clear to see how much of the workout that is left – always a good motivator.

So, how do you feel about your screen time and the apps you are using?

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