Screen Time Tracking/Management

In my “What Happened in 2018” post I wrote this:

And the usage of screen time management apps, like Screentime on iOS, is surging. We know we are addicted to tech, we don’t want to be, and we are working on getting sober.

I wrote that based mostly on anecdotal data but we have been looking for better data and have not found it.

So Dani and I worked on a survey that she ran last week and we got these results from a survey of 1,000 adults in the US using Google Surveys:

• 24% use an app to track their screen time.
• 34% of iOS users use an app to track screen time vs 19% of Android users.
• iOS users are twice as likely to use the default screen tracker app than Android users.
• People across age groups are equally likely to use an app to track their screen time.

Here is a graphical representation of that data that Dani put together:

What we don’t know is what these numbers looked like a year ago, but I am fairly confident that we are seeing a surge in the usage of these tools to manage screen time.

We will run this survey again mid-year and again at the end of the year to see if this trend continues.

This is a good trend in my view but it does mean that there is a governor on the amount of usage time that consumers have on their mobile apps and that will make it a bit harder for new mobile apps to gain traction and market share.

It will be interesting to see if usage of mobile apps, including the most popular ones like Instagram, show any signs of slowing down.