Screen Time Limiting Facebook
I think we can all agree Facebook and other social media is a black hole for attention and time, where if you have a few minutes to spare and decided to JUST scroll for those few minutes, then it would turn into hours. I think this is true, and it can be proven by my Screen Time data in iOS, where it showed that I spent hours on Facebook, per week. At least I used to.
Once when I looked at the Screen Time summary for the week, I felt that the time wasting needed to stop. I’ve seen videos saying setting time limits on apps would help but I used to think it was a gimmick because in the past I was too dependent on most social media that I will just circumvent the limit either by disabling it itself or opening on web instead of app. But I decided to give the Screen Time limit a try. It worked, kinda.
I set the limit for 15 minutes, and when the time is up, iOS will have a popup saying that I have wasted 15 minutes of my life on Facebook. I can then select OK, which will bring me to the Home Screen, or Ignore Limit. I thought that it is a bit useless to have a bypass function right there, but it turns out quite well designed. If I select Ignore Limit, I can:
- Ignore for 1 more minute
- Add another 15 minutes, or
- Disable the Time Limit for the day.
I rarely use the 1 more minute options, but I guess it could be useful if you put it on a shopping website that you browse often, so that you can get just the extra 1 minute in the odd days you are finishing your purchase. I use the add another 15 minutes quite often as I usually feel I do not have my ‘fix’ for the day. Why not set for 30 minutes then? Because when I set for 15 minutes, the block is smaller and I will be reminded more often.
I would then be annoyed and lament but after once or twice, I stopped. See, I don’t stop or reduce my time spent to zero, but I think I manage to reduce it to a healthy level. Overall I think it is useful. I guess people can easily set these settings for themselves to see how it works, but most problems in life are caused by inertia, in the sense we have a hard time to start changing something. So I hope this post can help anyone who is interested to finally try it.
Thank you for reading.