How to scroll less: 5 tips and what the studies actually show

You put your phone down. Thirty seconds later, it’s back in your hand with Instagram open, and you never really decided to do that. Tips for breaking the habit are everywhere: switch your screen to black and white, turn off notifications, leave your phone in another room, install an app that makes you pause.

Which ones actually work? The good news is that researchers have tested several of them in recent years, measuring use directly on people’s phones, not just by asking them. Here’s what those studies say, tip by tip.

A quick note before we go any further: I’m not a researcher. I chose studies from 2019 to 2026, favouring those that measure use on the phone itself, and each one links to its source. I also make pourquoi.app, an app that adds exactly this kind of pause before you open the apps you choose, so I have a stake in this. I’ll come back to it briefly at the end.

Why we scroll without deciding to

Mindless scrolling isn’t a character flaw. It’s a habit: an action set off by a cue (queuing, the sofa after a long day, a notification) before you’ve even thought about it. The psychologist Wendy Wood, who studies habits, explains that a large part of what we do every day happens on autopilot, and that people who seem to have “a lot of willpower” have mostly arranged their lives so they’re rarely tempted.

That’s where friction comes in: making it just a little harder to open an app on autopilot, just enough to give your decision time to catch up. The five tips below start with the moment you tap an icon and widen out to your whole day.

1. A pause before opening Instagram or TikTok

How it works: when you tap the icon of an app you’ve picked, a short pause appears before it opens, and you decide whether to go ahead or back out. You need an app for this, such as the one sec app or pourquoi.app.

What the studies say: in 2023, three German researchers, one of them the creator of one sec (a competitor of pourquoi.app), published a study in the scientific journal PNAS on real-world use of one sec, which imposes a pause of a few seconds. They followed 280 people for six weeks:

• 36% of the time, users backed out instead of going ahead;
• their attempts to open the apps they had chosen dropped by 37% between the first and sixth weeks;
• with both effects combined, they actually opened those apps about 57% less often, according to the authors.

To find out which part of the setup mattered, the same researchers (Grüning, Riedel and Lorenz-Spreen) also tested its components one by one, online, with 500 participants. What worked best was being able to back out with a single tap, just as you’re about to open the app. In 2024, a second study, also co-authored by the creator of one sec, analysed usage data from more than 1,000 users over three months on average: they backed out a third of the time, and their attempts dropped over the weeks.

A team at the University of Michigan tested another idea: instead of blocking an app after a set amount of time, make it a little less responsive (slower to react to taps and swipes, less smooth scrolling). In a study of 42 people over five weeks, this gentler version did slightly better than blocking, and participants found it much easier to accept.

The limitations: the people in the one sec study were volunteers who had chosen to install the app, and there was no comparison group. The authors themselves call for a study that randomly assigns who gets the app. The Michigan study is small and only covers Android.

Verdict: promising, especially when the obstacle still lets you choose. And it has to come at the right moment: just before you open the app.

2. Switch your phone to greyscale

How it works: you turn your screen grey, so that app icons, red notification badges and videos look less appealing.

• On iPhone: Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Colour Filters. Turn on Colour Filters and choose Greyscale. To turn it on and off by triple-clicking the side button: Settings → Accessibility → Accessibility Shortcut → Colour Filters.
• On Android: where you’ll find it depends on the make of your phone. The easiest option is often Digital Wellbeing’s Bedtime mode, which switches the screen to greyscale during the hours you choose.

What the studies say:

• In a trial published in 2023, 112 students were randomly assigned to different groups. Screen time dropped within the first few days of greyscale, faster than with time limits (Zimmermann and Sobolev).
• In a 2024 Dutch study, 84 people spent a week in greyscale. They started out using their phones nearly five hours a day, and saved about 20 minutes a day. They also felt more in control of their phone use, and less stressed (Dekker and Baumgartner).
• A 2026 study of medical students arrived at a similar figure: about 28 minutes less per day (Hagerty and colleagues).

The limitations: in the Dutch study, participants unlocked their phones just as often as before, about 80 times a day. And the trial with 112 students found no clear effect on wellbeing. The “38 minutes” figure you sometimes see comes from older studies that I wasn’t able to verify.

Verdict: greyscale makes your sessions shorter, but you still pick up your phone just as often. It’s a good add-on, especially in the evening, when the screen keeps you awake.

3. Notifications: Scheduled Summary instead of turning everything off

How it works: non-urgent notifications arrive in a few batches, at set times, instead of all day long. On iPhone: Settings → Notifications → Scheduled Summary. Choose the apps it covers, then two or three delivery times, for example 8am, 1pm and 7pm. Direct messages still come through straight away.

What the studies say:

• In a 2019 trial, 237 people were randomly assigned to different ways of getting their notifications for two weeks. Those who got them in three batches a day were more attentive, more productive, in a better mood and less stressed. Hourly batches made almost no difference (Fitz and colleagues).
• In the same study, turning everything off increased anxiety and the fear of missing out.
• A 2025 trial of 205 people whose phone use was logged points the same way: turning off notifications for a week changed neither screen time nor how often people checked their phones. Participants felt that fewer of their phone checks were habitual, but they worried more about missing something (Dekker, Baumgartner, Sumter and Ohme).

Verdict: have your notifications delivered in two or three batches a day, at set times. Turning them all off doesn’t necessarily help, because the urge to check is still there.

4. Keep your phone out of the bedroom at night

How it works: you charge your phone somewhere other than next to the bed or the sofa, so it’s no longer within reach.

What the studies say: it works, but not the way you might think. In a 2025 study, Maxi Heitmayer had 22 people work two five-hour sessions: once with their phone within reach, and once with it placed 1.5 metres away. When it was out of reach, they used it half as much. But the breaks they took on their computer more than doubled (Heitmayer). The urge to take a break hadn’t gone away. It had just moved to another screen.

Verdict: useful, as long as you think about the other screens in the room, and plan something else to do instead. The article on breaking the “one last scroll” habit before bed has ideas for the evening.

5. Limit or block an app: what it actually changes

How it works: a time limit for each app, or an outright block during certain hours.

What the studies say:

• In a large US study of about 2,000 adults, published in 2022, simply giving people the option to set their own limits cut the time they spent on the targeted apps by 22 minutes a day, over twelve weeks (Allcott, Gentzkow and Song).
• In another study of about 370 people, blocking YouTube for one to two weeks cut phone time by about 50 minutes a day. For Instagram, the drop was only about 16 minutes, because some of that time shifted to Facebook or TikTok. The time people actually got back went mostly to offline activities (Aridor).

The limitations: you can easily get round a limit, and a block often shifts use to another app. I go into the two approaches in more detail in the comparison of blocker apps and apps that ask why.

Verdict: it helps, especially when you’re the one setting the limit. Save it for the apps that take up the most time.

What we don’t know yet

Several widely shared tips have, as far as I know, no solid study behind them: moving apps off your home screen, logging out of your accounts after each use, putting apps in a folder. They may work for you. It’s just that nobody has measured it.

There’s another, broader limitation. In 2023, two Italian researchers reviewed 62 studies on tools that help people use their phones less. They found a “small to medium” effect on time spent. But nearly all of those studies last only a few weeks, and rarely follow people afterwards (Monge Roffarello and De Russis). In other words, we know what works at first, but much less about what holds up over several months.

That’s one more reason to choose the tips that suit you, rather than piling them all on.

How to combine these tips

My advice: two or three well-chosen bits of friction, rather than ten rules you’ll drop after a week. A simple combination to start with:

1. A pause at the moment you reach for an app, for the ones that hook you most, with the option to back out.
2. Greyscale in the evening, or all day if you don’t mind it.
3. Scheduled Summary for notifications that can wait.

For step-by-step settings, the guides to reducing screen time on iPhone and on Android walk you through everything. And if you’d like to start by finding out where your time slips away to, the article Screen time: seven days to see where it actually goes lays out a method, day by day.

Where pourquoi.app fits

pourquoi.app, the app I make, falls under the first tip: a pause at the moment you reach for an app. It’s an iPhone and Android app. When you open one of the apps you’ve chosen, pourquoi.app asks why you’re opening it now and offers six short answers, from “Communicate” to “Entertain myself”, including one for when you’re not really sure. Then you carry on to the app, or you close it. On Android, the question also appears when you unlock your phone.

As in the studies above, you can back out on the spot. On top of that, you pick a reason: over time, your answers show you which apps you open most often on autopilot, and at what times. That question wasn’t tested in these studies, and no study has tested pourquoi.app itself yet. Your history (which app, when, which answer) stays on your phone. If you turn on anonymous statistics (off by default), only the type of answer you pick is counted, anonymously and without the app you opened. The questions are free; Premium prices are on the home page. Setup takes a few minutes: iPhone guide, Android guide.

Frequently asked questions

Does making your phone black and white actually work?

A little. In two studies from 2024 and 2026, switching the screen to greyscale cut screen time by 20 to 28 minutes a day. But participants unlocked their phones just as often as before: greyscale shortens sessions without breaking the habit of reaching for your phone.

Can you set your phone to greyscale only at night?

Yes. On iPhone, use the Shortcuts app to create an automation that runs at the time you choose, with the “Set Colour Filters” action. On Android, Digital Wellbeing’s Bedtime mode can switch the screen to greyscale during the hours you set.

Should you turn off all your notifications?

Not necessarily. In a 2025 trial of 205 people, turning off all notifications for a week changed neither screen time nor how often people checked their phones, and it increased the fear of missing out. In another study, from 2019, getting them in three batches a day worked better: more attention, less stress.

Does deleting Instagram from your phone help?

A little, but some of the time moves elsewhere. In a study where Instagram was blocked for one to two weeks, phone time fell by only about 16 minutes a day: some of it shifted to Facebook or TikTok. The time people actually got back went mostly to offline activities.

Is pourquoi.app free?

The questions that appear when you open your apps are free and unlimited, on iPhone and Android. Premium, the paid plan, adds your full stats history and the weekly recap, and you can try it free for seven days. Prices are on the site’s home page.

About the author

I’m Nicolas Carrion, and I designed and built pourquoi.app, an app about phone habits. I’m not a researcher or a doctor, so every study and figure here links to its source, all checked on 12 October 2026. My background and how to reach me are on the about page.