I think Screen Time on iOS and macOS is one of the best tools available to fight procrastination and hyperbolic discounting. Here are a few ways I think it could get even better.
#1 Add an option to disable “One More Minute”
The first time each day Screen Time is enforced for any application or website, Apple gives users the option to extend its usage by 1 minute. I assume this was added for emergency situations, which makes sense, but it allows for a number of loopholes. Users should have the option to disable it for every “App Limit” they create. An affordance similar to what exists now for “Block at end of limit” would do the trick.
#2 Allow “Daily time limit” to be set to 0 minutes
Apple doesn’t allow users to set a “Daily time limit” that’s less than 1 minute. This, when considered alongside #1
, make it impossible to disallow certain apps to be used on select days of the week. For example, in the screenshot below, I’m unable to set it so I’m only allowed to listen to Castro on weekends.
#3 Include background audio playback in time limit quotas on iOS
Right now limitations are only counted when the app is open. Apple should count audio playback as time using the app regardless of whether it’s open or running in the background. With the current implementation, users can do things like open a podcast app, start playing a queue of podcasts, close the podcast app, and listen to podcasts for as long as they want. This seems to go against the spirit of App Limits as it allows for hours of listening beyond whatever limitation may have been set. This loophole is especially bad when taking into account #2
.
#4 Disable Picture in Picture playback when a limit is reached
As of now, videos can play for an unlimited amount of time so long as you initiate PiP before Screen Time is activated. This loophole is especially bad when considered alongside point #1
.
(Everything listed above is unresolved as of iOS 14.2 and macOS 11.0.1 unless otherwise stated.)