Do you think you’d be able to happily leave home without your smartphone? If the answer to that question is no, then you might be addicted to your smartphone. According to recent studies, smartphone users check their device an average of 47 times per day and the average amount of time spent on smartphones and tablets is around four hours per day. If you feel you need to take a step back from so much technology and make better use of your time, then read on to find a list of ten apps to help you set your phone down.
Forest
Imagine a tree that grows if you don’t touch your smartphone. This is the idea behind Forest: Stay Focused, an app that attempts to motivate you to stop using your smartphone in order to see how your plants grow and evolve. All you have to do is plant a seed and repress the urge to look at your device in order to grow a beautiful garden.
AppBlock
If you find yourself wasting time checking your social networks all day everyday, AppBlock is an interesting app that lets you block any apps you have installed on your device. This way, you can stop yourself from opening any specific apps during the day or during specific hours you set in the app’s interface.
Blocksite
In line with the previous app, we have Blocksite. Through this app, not only can you block access to different apps on your smartphone, you also have the possibility to block access to any website you find yourself addicted to. Once you enter the URL of the website in the app, you won’t be able to see it the next time you use your browser.
Antisocial
Antisocial goes even further and makes a complete study of how you use your smartphone. Thanks to its statistics system, it just takes a few minutes to see what apps you access the most often. Furthermore, the tool provides a count of the number of times you’ve unlocked your screen and lets you set a maximum limit to the number of hours you use your phone. You can also block any app on certain days.
UBhind
If you liked the idea of collecting data about how long you spend using your apps, UBhind is another one of those tools that lets you analyze which apps you’re most hooked to. This app provides interesting information like the number of times you open each separate app and how much data each app has used. Plus, you can set a usage limit for each one and establish a punishment in case you don’t stay within your limits.
Flipd
With Flipd, it’ll be easy to set your phone down. The app has you turn your phone over for a certain amount of time, which you’ll set in the beginning. You can only turn it back over and access the content on your smartphone during short breaks lasting only a few seconds. You can also activate a list white list of contacts so that their calls and messages reach you at any time.
Thrive
If you feel the need to look at your phone every time you receive a new notification, Thrive is an interesting tool that lets you deactivate all alerts on your device. To do this, you just have to decide on a time interval during which you want to activate this effect on your Android device. Another great thing about this tool is that you can activate a feature that will tell you if you go over the usage limit of an app you have installed.
Productivity Challenge Timer
If you manage to set your phone down but you haven’t actually organized your day, then it won’t do you much good to not depend on your device. That’s why Productivity Challenge Timer is an app that lets you set the amount of time you want to dedicate to each one of your pending tasks in order to increase your productivity. Based on the well-known Pomodoro method, this tool aims to help you finish all your projects within a distraction-free timeframe.
SPACE
You may be one of those people who only accomplishes big goals by reaching a handful of smaller objectives first. This is the exact idea that SPACE is built on. It’s an app that lets you set up small challenges to help you get over your smartphone addiction. You have to set the time you want to stay away from your device so that the app turns off the screen, deactivates notifications, or sends you alerts when your behavior on your device could be better.
Siempo
We couldn’t finish off this list without mentioning a launcher that aims to help users spend less time on their smartphones. Siempo selects the apps that you should spend less time using and makes it so they’re not quite as easy to access from the interface. On the flip side, you also have the possibility to decide for yourself which apps you want to use less of, allowing the tool to help you with its simple but elegant graphics.
