Notes on screen time, behavioural econ, and putting the phone down.

EarnIt is recommended constantly as an app that makes you do pushups to unlock your phone. It has no exercise features at all. Here is what EarnIt really is, and what to use if you wanted the workout one.

Habit Doom locks your apps at midnight until you complete a daily habit. Six honest alternatives compared, including which ones publish a price and which actually hold at the OS level.

RepUnlock counts pushups with your camera to unlock apps, but it does not publish a price and does not build on Apple Screen Time. Six alternatives compared on mechanic, cost, and whether the block actually holds.

Digital minimalism explained: Cal Newport's philosophy, a practical version you can actually run, and an honest look at where the approach falls short.

A concrete, hour-by-hour 48-hour phone reset to break the scroll habit. A short digital detox you can actually finish, then keep the gains afterward.

Average screen time per day by age in 2026: what surveys find for teens, young adults, midlife, and older adults, plus why the numbers vary so much.

How to set screen time goals you actually keep: why round-number targets fail, how to stage them, and why a specific goal with a real stake beats good intentions.

The best iPhone app blockers in 2026, ranked by mechanism: soft timers, friction pauses, hard locks, and verified-exercise consequences. Honest trade-offs.

How much screen time is too much? The research points to context over a magic number. Here is what studies find and how to judge your own limit.

ScreenFine is live on the App Store for iPhone. Set a daily limit, and when you cross it the apps you chose lock, until you earn the unlock.

Apple Screen Time is an honest ledger with no enforcement: an accurate statement, then an unlocked vault. Why the built-in limits never held.

Do app blockers work? An honest review of timers, hard blockers, friction, and consequence tools, when each one helps, and why most people bypass them.