Cutting down screen time is this decade’s new diet regimen. But this isn't about cutting weight or maintaining your physical health; it's all about your mental health. However, I think screen time—like every diet—will eventually fade into obscurity.
Let me explain why "Screen Time" has become the bogeyman for modern health. After COVID, with everyone spending every waking second on their devices, the idea of being "too online" was an actual problem. Even before COVID, social media and just being on your phone was becoming more and more common. Heck, think about when you go out in public. If you are in a confined space like a waiting room, train, or elevator, almost everyone is on their phone to avoid an awkward interaction. COVID just made it so that, instead of being on your phone to avoid these interactions, it was to help you ignore the world.
Since then, people have become more cognizant of the fact that they are online. There are movements dedicated to having a "dumbphone" or a minimal phone to curb phone use. There is the idea of splitting your phone into multiple things—digital camera, flip phone, Nintendo DS—which all take some aspect of the phone and break it down so that you aren't sucked into something else.
But Screen Time, honestly, is kind of a meaningless metric. Why? Because it makes you fixate so hard on not using something that you waste more mental energy and cause more friction to do simple things.
As an aside: if you need to take a break from a phone—such as having actual trouble controlling your use and it's harming your mental health—please do seek either professional help or take serious measures to get something else (like a dumb flip phone).
Now, if you are a person who just wants to cut back, it's good to use Screen Time as a benchmark. You might delete nonsense apps and notice a big reduction in Screen Time, but after that point, you plateau. You become upset trying to change your green to grayscale. Delete or make it impossible to use essential apps? All for what—a couple of minutes?
Once you find that big drop-off in Screen Time, that’s all you need to do. It's like cutting junk food and candy out of your diet; all that's left is to focus on consistent, good intake. With Screen Time, you might have to be on your phone a lot, either for work, directions, or music. None of those are bad. This is why Screen Time doesn't matter once you rid yourself of the junk. Also, just like a person counting calories, you knew before you started what to get rid of.
The real way to combat a lot of Screen Time is to find productive hobbies or tasks that can replace compulsive phone use. If your form of relaxation is to immediately grab your phone, then you will always do that even if social media is not on it. Boredom can adapt, but habits don't like to be broken. If you keep a book next to you and open it instead of a phone, you will read more. When you get off work and sit on your phone to relax, put the phone in your bag and watch a movie on the TV. Do things without your phone—literally anything—and your Screen Time will fall while the things you want to do will increase.