Screen Time Calculator
How many years will you spend on your phone?
Settings → Screen Time → Daily Average.
That's more than most people are awake. The result caps at your waking hours.
What this means
How
How ScreenBuddy gets the time back
ScreenBuddy puts a 25-second countdown in front of the apps that distract you most. The pause gives you a moment to decide if you really want to scroll.
- Pick your most distracting apps. They stay locked.
- Want one? Wait 25 seconds to unlock it.
- Still want it? Scroll until you hit your daily limit.
fewer app opens
In a six-week study, a short pause before an app opened cut how often people opened it by 57%. ScreenBuddy is built on the same kind of pause.Grüning et al., PNAS, 2023My Screen Time, before and after
Seven hours a day, down to under three.
Daily average from my iPhone’s Screen Time. John, founder of ScreenBuddy.Why
What changes when you use your phone less
fewer symptoms of depression
Students who kept their phone use under 2 hours a day for three weeks also had 16% less stress and 18% better sleep.Pieh et al., BMC Medicine, 2025of attention back
Two weeks without mobile internet cut people’s screen time from about 5 hours a day to under 3. Their attention improved by the equivalent of 10 years of age-related decline, and they spent the time with people, exercising and outside.Castelo et al., PNAS Nexus, 2025less a day
People who used their phone an hour less a day for one week exercised more, felt more satisfied with life and had less anxiety and depression. Four months later they were still on it 45 minutes less a day.Brailovskaia et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2022Which of the 6 phone users are you? Take the Phone Habit Quiz →
Where these numbers come from
Life expectancy 79 (CDC NCHS 2024). Sleeping 9.03h, eating and drinking 1.21h, housework 0.56h, and personal care other than sleeping 0.77h per day (BLS American Time Use Survey 2025). Work assumes full time employment until 65 at 5.39h a day averaged across the week. Screen time beyond your free time is shown as overlap with work and chores and never overlaps sleep. The percentile is an estimate: a curve centered on the US average of 4h 39m a day (eMarketer) with the spread of measured phone use from RescueTime (2019, 11,000 users). The 57% figure is from one sec’s own study of its 10-second pause (GrĂĽning et al., PNAS 2023, 280 people over six weeks) and counts app opens, not ScreenBuddy users. Why section: Pieh et al., BMC Medicine 2025 (percentages from the University for Continuing Education Krems release); Castelo et al., PNAS Nexus 2025; Brailovskaia et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 2022. The before and after figures are John’s own iPhone Screen Time.