hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4322.txt

Episode: 4322
Title: HPR4322: Fighting smartphone addiction
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4322/hpr4322.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 22:58:42

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4,322, for Tuesday the 25th of February 2025.
Today's show is entitled Fighting Smartphone Addiction.
It is part of the series' health and health care.
It is hosted by Celeste, and is about 12 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, a time limit tool I'm trying out and how I'm using it.
Today's show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Relic
License.
Hello everyone and welcome to this new episode at Hacker Public Radio.
Today I don't have my usual microphone, so I'm recording from this smartphone.
Hopefully we got a decent audio quality.
So let's start.
In the last months, I noticed I was using this smartphone way too much than needed.
And even though I don't have any social media, I deleted all the accounts, Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook, I've never subscribed to TikTok, never signed up, and I deleted all of them.
I still have today, after years, a muscle memory to open the phone, unlock and open an app.
For me, the muscle memory was rebuilt for the browser and messaging applications.
So checking the news and then locking the game, checking the news and locking again, checking
the news and locking again, it's really hard to limit because even if the news are not
well designed for addiction, we might say, as the social media platforms, I still had this
muscle memory, automatic unlock of the screen.
And I don't like that because I was using the smartphone about 4 hours a day.
And some friends who have social media use it even more, like 7 or 8 hours a day, and
that's so much.
And I don't think it's healthy, so I want to cut down that time, so I will start from
me.
I'll start from myself, and as I said, I literally removed all the social media, so I needed
that some tools to help me get this smartphone at a correct usage.
At the same time, people usually suggest the Google well-being pre-installed application,
but I am running Raffino S without any Google play services or Google store or Google
anything, so nothing like that is installed.
Luckily I found a solution that I will present to you, which is called Open Time Limit.
You can find that on FDroid, and it's not exactly what I needed, but it works fine.
I wanted something to limit the usage of apps for myself, while Open Time Limit is more
suited, how do you say that, as you, I, T, E, D, suited, I don't know, more fifting, okay?
It fits better with the usage of parent control.
So the whole app is set up for parent control.
You are the parent, you can have a child device or a child account into the same device,
and then only the parent with a password can set up limits for certain applications, block
or other applications, or allow other applications.
So it's quite strange because I am using it for myself, and I am at the same time
the parent and the child one.
But it works, it's a bit complex, there are some features I still don't understand,
but it works.
So basically you can make groups, groups of apps, and add one app, all the app to a specific
group.
So for each app you have to choose one group in which you have to insert it, and then
you add some usage rules to that group.
So for example, for me I made the internet group that contains new pipe, a new pipe and
internet browser, and then I made the messaging group, which contains what's up, signal,
and telegram, and then I can set different rules for each group.
For instance, I did set up a limit of one hour day for add most for browsing, and one
hour day for messaging, and these timers run independently.
So the app open time limit is able to detect which app is active at any time, and decrease
the timer of its group accordingly.
And the time is over, it's simply blocked.
You can, if you really need, add more time, but obviously as I'm trying to cut down the
usage, I'm not doing that, but you need self-control for that.
But yeah, increasing the time limits can be still useful, for instance, if you really
need to reply to a message, and so you cannot like one minute only to reply to that message,
and then the app is blocked again.
Another cool features that I found useful was about limiting the muscle memory in unlocking
the screen continuously, and opening the messaging and browser.
So open time limit has a, how's it called?
Session duration limit.
After which you have to take a break, a forced break.
For example, for my browser activity, I did set up one hour of total time in day, but
I set that each session of usage of the browser can last only 10 minutes.
So if I open the browser, the 10 minutes starts timer is started, and other opening of
the browser inside the time limit are allowed.
But once I reach the 10th minute after the first opening, I have to take a break.
So I set 20 minutes break after 10 minutes of usage.
And if you try to open the app after the minute number 10, it's blocked.
And you have to wait 20 minutes.
And this is very useful, I think, for removing the muscle memory, I mean, I've been using
it only for a week, and it's really helping.
Because for the first minutes, you still go on, go on with the muscle memory, you open
or you open or you open or you open the app, and then it's blocked.
And for 20 minutes you, hey, hey, oh no, it's blocked.
Hey, let's try.
Oh no, it's blocked.
And you realize every time it's blocked, you realize you were opening the app automatically
without thinking, and so something that you did without thinking becomes a thought.
And you are able to know it and limit yourself more effectively.
So another cool thing I did set up, and that it might be useful to you, I have also the
problem that I tend to use this smartphone after waking up in the morning.
So one solution I got is simply to not use the alarm of the phone, but use a physical
low-tech alarm.
But when I don't have that physical alarm at hand, yeah, I have to use the phone one.
So after you probably do the same, I guess, I have to, I mean all of my friends do this
too.
After you stop the alarm, you already have the phone in your hand and you are confused
and ultra tired, trying to wake up, and you get stuck on your phone for half an hour.
Just in the process of trying to wake up.
And in order to prevent that, I did set up a rule that completely blocks browsing activities
and new pipe, since six from six a.m. to nine or ten a.m.
So even if I wake up earlier or later, the browsing activity is completely blocked until
I'm already at work, I'm already out, and certainly I'm not in the bed.
That helps a lot.
And that also saves time, which means I can get up and be ready in less time.
I can sleep more.
And also I'm less tired because I'm not wasting that half hour watching a screen.
So yeah, open time limit on F-Droid, search it, try it, and let me know what do you think.
And if you have tried similar solutions, or do you have different or similar problems
to me and how you manage them, yeah, see you next time.
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at HackerPublicRadio.org.
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On this advice status, today's show is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.