What you need to know
- A new Digital Wellbeing feature is rolling out to Android phones, called "screen time reminders."
- These reminders will let you know if you've been using a certain app for a long period of time.
- You can customize which apps participate in screen time reminders, or turn them off altogether.
Find yourself scrolling on social media apps, like Instagram or TikTok, for too long? A new feature coming to many of the best Android phones will give you a slight nudge when you use selected apps for a while. It's called Screen time reminders, and the Digital Wellbeing tool appears to be widely rolling out now. Nail Sadykov and Mishaal Rahman both reported seeing the feature on their phones, Rahman shared in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Screen time reminders were initially discovered in an APK teardown last month, under the codename "Mindful Nudge." Now, it's available on Google Pixel devices, but also many other Android phones from brands like Nothing and OnePlus. Notably, the reminders haven't been spotted on Samsung phones yet. That isn't exactly surprising, since Samsung has its own digital health features baked into One UI.
The feature can be found under the Screen time reminders tab on the Digital Wellbeing page in the Settings app. "Stay in control of your digital habits with Screen time reminders," the splash screen explains. "Get occasional reminders that show how much time you're spending on the app."
Google is rolling out a new feature in the Digital Wellbeing app called screen time reminders. This feature gives you gentle reminders when you've been using selected apps for a long time. The reminder comes in the form of a pill that appears at the top of the screen. The… pic.twitter.com/oTFjlshbOGNovember 16, 2024
Google calls these "gentle reminders," and they're fairly unobtrusive. After a set period of time, like 15 or 25 minutes, a pill-shaped overlay can appear at the top of your screen showing how much time you've spent on an app. You can tap the pill notification to expand it, where you'll see a checkbox for Don't show reminders for this app and a button to jump straight to Screen time reminders settings.
Users can customize which apps participate in Screen time reminders, but they can't change the intervals at which notifications are sent. Unlike app time limits, these nudges won't prevent you from using a particular app — they'll just make sure you know just how long you've been doomscrolling. If you aren't interested, there's a universal toggle for Screen time reminders that can be flipped on or off.
The feature is separate from the rest of Digital Wellbeing, so you can get Screen time reminders without needing to turn on things like app limits. Early indications are that these "gentle reminders" could be a great way to acknowledge when you've spent too long in a single app to avoid doomscrolling and time-wasting.
