What app eats up most of your screen time — and do you even feel bad about it?
ChatGPT—without question.
BBC News comes second, followed by Reframe, which has helped me remain alcohol-free for more than nine months, and the Ventusky weather app.
Do I feel bad about it?
Not one bit: ChatGPT is less a distraction than a working studio, editor, research assistant, coach and sounding board. I use it to interrogate and rewrite fifteen years of diary entries; analyse swim training and individual athlete development; explore dreams through a Jungian process; reflect on mental and physical health; develop recipes; identify plants and gardening problems; summarise council documents and policy issues; research historical and cultural contexts; generate blog titles and SEO material; recover memories through carefully structured questions; transcribe old documents; plan creative projects; and recreate scenes from photographs, diaries and dreams.
So, yes, it accounts for much of my screen time—but much of that time is spent writing, remembering, analysing, coaching, learning and making things. I feel less guilty about the hours than astonished by what can now be accomplished within them. And why do I now read for several hours a day? AI helps me pick books I will love. And some of these mean I spend little time ‘doom scrolling’ (I deleted all my social apps from my phone six months ago anyway).
Leave a Reply