I mentioned in my How Are You Doing post that I might get involved in a study the first week of February that, in part, uses Moment app. The study is through National Public Radio's "All Tech Considered" and their station in NYC, WNYC. I decided to do it. I started with Moment app on Saturday, January 17 and I used it for about four weeks. It was an up and down process, but I've learned some things about myself in the process.
First, it took me a few days to get in tune with using the app. Moment app is only available for the iPhone and the iOS operating system. Sorry, Android users! The purpose of Moment app is to record your time spent on your phone and report that usage to you. It uses several different items to gauge your screen time. Currently, iOS doesn't have an easy way to allow an app to determine if you're on the phone or not. It seems simple to me: if the screen is illuminated, you're on the phone. I'm not an IT person, so it must be more complicated than that!
Moment takes multiple factors into consideration when determining when you're on your phone or not. The one I quickly discovered was the detection algorithm in determining your location. The first day I downloaded it and started using it, I took my kids about 35 miles north of our house for lunch. Moment thought I was on the phone the whole trip up and back. Between that and some other side trips around town, about 60 to 70 minutes of screen time became 167 minutes!
I had seen stories where the folks at WNYC were shocked to see their phone usage was approaching 2 hours a day and here I was nearly 1-1/2 times that! I read through the FAQ's that come with the app and didn't see a solution. I decided to email the developer, Kevin Holesh. His email is listed under "Need more help?" at the bottom of the FAQ section. To my surprise, he got back to me within about 2 hours of sending the email. To account for movement such as mine and to overcome the detection algorithm, there are two phone positions that Moment app ignores: face down flat on a surface and upside down, face to your leg in your front pants pocket.
Once I got that figured out, I found my battery draining, so back to the FAQ's! I did everything Kevin suggested but still find my battery life draining more quickly. Moment has to run in the background in order to track your screen time. I'm also a bit more active than maybe some of the folks in the larger cities are that use the app. I walk my dog for about a mile each morning and then drive 8 miles to work. If I'm in my office, I usually keep my phone face down on my desk. However, I have projects that I working on at Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland Baltimore and University of Maryland College Park. I also take my kids many places, attend conferences and generally move about in a 35 to 40 mile radius of my home. I suspect Kevin and others who use his app in NYC move about in a 3-5 mile radius regularly.
Another thing I learned about myself, which I mostly knew, is that my phone usage during the day is 1.) tied to what I'm doing that day and 2.) can be shorter during working hours than before and after work. An example of 1.) is Tuesday, January 19 and Tuesday, February 2. I was at a construction field office, mostly in meetings, and used my phone very little those days. The field office has wifi and so my iPad sees high usage for meeting minutes and checking email. But on Thursday, January 22 and Friday, January 23, I was at a conference in DC and was on my phone constantly. I took the Metro downtown both days so I was listening to podcasts and playing games in route.
Part of the WNYC study I was involved in gets to 2.). Some scientists think that American adults are unable to be bored because we are constantly on our phones. Moment has a graphing feature that shows you what times of day you spent how many minutes on your phone. For this post, I selected a random week day: Wednesday, January 21. I spent 63 total minutes on my phone and picked it up 70 times that day. Between 7:37 and 7:45 AM, I was on it for 5 minutes with 12 pick ups. Sadly, much of that was while I was driving to work, so I was clearly playing games or checking Twitter while at stop lights. For the next 9 hours, I spent 39 minutes on the phone for a few minutes at a time. That includes what I think is my commute home, which means I probably didn't have the phone face down in my car, so it was recording the 8 mile trip home as usage. Then, between 7:48 PM and 8:26 PM, I spent another 14 minutes on my phone with 25 pick ups.
That was a good day. I'm seeing the trend that my phone usage skyrockets on the weekends. I used Moment on three weekends and had this usage:
Saturday, January 17 - 167 minutes
Sunday, January 18 - 118 minutes
Saturday, January 24 - 65 minutes
Sunday, January 25 - 82 minutes
Saturday, January 31 - 63 minutes
Sunday, February 1 - 111 minutes
You could easily discount the first two days as those were the first two days I had the app. The next weekend as I was on retreat with the Confirmation class from my church so I wasn't using my phone much. The last weekend might be representative, but I'm not sure as I got bored during the Super Bowl and was intermittently playing games and keeping an eye on Twitter during much of the game.
All told, I think my phone usage mirrors my life - all over the map! I did stop using Moment app because of the battery usage issues. I am towards the end of my wireless contract so my iPhone 5C is approaching the magic 2 year age, but I think the app sucks more juice than intended.
I enjoyed this experiment and I think the simple act of tracing my phone usage has helped me understand it and do something about it. While I'm cooking dinner, do I play fewer solitaire hands, no. But I am keeping the phone face down on my desk more often, leaving it there when I go to the bathroom or to get a cup of coffee and I'm usually not touching it during meetings. I think those are positive moves.
I enjoyed this experiment and I think the simple act of tracing my phone usage has helped me understand it and do something about it. While I'm cooking dinner, do I play fewer solitaire hands, no. But I am keeping the phone face down on my desk more often, leaving it there when I go to the bathroom or to get a cup of coffee and I'm usually not touching it during meetings. I think those are positive moves.
How's your phone usage?
