An update on the Moment app

I wrote a post some time back about how shocked I was by the data the Moment app gave me about my phone usage.

You can read that post here.

I kept it going for awhile but then I deleted the app.

This screenshot was taken on my birthday last year, which is why the emails, messages, phone calls and whatsapps are out of control 🙂

I have data for March – mid-June which I thought I’d share with you:

This still shocks me when I look at it objectively – both in the number of minutes a day (on average, over 2 hours a day) and the 30 pickups.

When I’d first checked, I noticed some of my behaviour:

1. I pick up the phone to switch off the alarm about 3 times a day (snooze!).
2. On the two days a week I travel by myself, I go in a bit later, and waste a fair amount of time on Instagram in the morning.
3. Every time a notification message pops up, I pick up the phone.
4. On the other hand, if I leave the phone in my bag, hours go by without me checking it (when having lunch/ supper with friends – this is good!)
5. Intentional phone usage is not the problem – I knew when I was on Instagram, checking text messages, checking steps on my Fitbit, checking my email, checking my calendar, etc. – it’s the phone pickups I wasn’t aware of that were the problem for me.

Usually with these kinds of things (monitoring apps), one changes behaviour because you know the app is “watching” you.

I didn’t. I still want to check my steps, email, messages, etc. and I only used to check them about three times a day unless the phone was on my desk.

The only things that helped me were:

1. disabling all those blinking notifications
2. removing apps from the phone
3. leaving the phone in my handbag unless it was time to check emails, Instagram, etc.
4. when charging the phone via my computer’s USB port, I plug the charger in and push the phone to behind the laptop so I don’t see all the blinking going on.

In a month or two’s time, I want to download the app again, and let it monitor my usage for a month to see if any of my good habits have stuck.

Now tell me…did you download the Moment app? were you surprised by the results?