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What do you think the top three most used apps on your phone for the past week are?
We used this question as an icebreaker in my church group, and it was interesting seeing what people thought they used compared to what they actually used.
Did you guess correctly?
Anything surprise you about which apps you used the most/how much time you spent on them?
I guessed Chrome, YouTube, and my ereader app, and got them right. But I also tend to see those same three apps each week through the weekly health report and figured it would be those.
I'd guess Snapchat, Spotify, and PipePipe (third party youtube client).
But it's actually Snapchat, Firefox, and Three Cheers (third party tildes client).
Genuinely surprised I spent more time here than youtube.
Also this is by screen time. Spotify would def make the list if it counted background usage.
How can you all tell what you thought were most frequently used and what ended up being most frequently used?
Is my phone too old for this feature? I'm using a pixel 5 (2019)
On mine there's Settings - Apps - Screen Time
Thank you!
Settings > Digital Wellbeing > View app activity details
I just got the Android 17 update 2 days ago, but I think that's still there in previous versions.
You may need to look up how to check this on the version of Android installed on your phone.
I thought it would be Safari, Whatsapp, Signal.
It’s actually Safari, NetNewsWire, and Discord.
It seems I talk to my friends more than I responded to clients or family. 😬
It’s also telling bc I would have thought I “barely” check my RSS feeds compared to mastodon, but my default fediverse app didn’t even crack the top five (possibly due to time lost to Wallflower? 😉)
I assumed my three most used apps were YouTube, Facebook Messenger and Safari but it ended up being YouTube, Discord, and Safari.
I listen/watch a lot of YouTube on my phone so I'm not surprised to see it at the top. My main messaging apps for friends are Messenger and Discord. It was a toss-up on which I use more but I can understand why I'd use Discord more. Surprisingly, my Messenger was far lower than I expected. I used Apple Maps and YouTube Music way more. I'm a fairly curious person so I'm always opening my browser and just searching for random crap. Recently I installed the iOS 27 Beta and got the new Siri and I've been asking it a lot of questions. It's been working well for that so I wonder if my Safari usage will drop.
I would predict Safari, Messenger, Discord. Ended up being Safari, Discord, Narwhal (3rd party reddit app).
I assumed my top three would be the app for my car, my weather app and Google calendar. It was actually Three Cheers, Slack and Google Maps. So yeah, I guess I'm spending too much time looking at Tildes...
Without looking, Opera (does the best ad-blocking on Reddit), YouTube and Discord.
Looking it up... dead on, in that order.
Assumption and actual are on point:
Average of 35 phone pickups a day, 22% drop from last week.
Only use Reddit now as a reference due to the wealth of information in niche and hobby subreddits. I'll end up on 10-year-old threads when searching for things and a single karma comment from a long deleted account solves exactly what I was looking for.
Messenger mostly for SO and relatives. Don't have Facebook and Instagram installed on the phone.
Don't really watch YouTube on the phone nor majority for entertainment anymore, only on the desktop and mostly only lecture-type videos around tech. Only the occasional game trailer or looking up short gameplay on something that piques my interest.
I've basically outsourced all my short term memory and the entirety of life planning to Todoist (and various todo lists before that), so this one is not a surprise.
I’m gonna guess: Slack, TikTok, Voyager for Lemmy.
Actual: TikTok, Slack, Messages. Lemmy was fourth 🤷
My guess is:
I don't know how to find the real stats. I use Graphene OS and under apps there is no such stat. Firefoy is absolutely right though, that I'm sure. Jellyfin is almost surely second, Immich may actually be less used than Home Assistant, but I don't have anything to check against.
When I have a look at battery stats, OpenVPN is there and high up, probably because it doesn't sleep with phone and Immich uses it to sync when I'm not at home so it simply drains battery quite a lot when actively syncing some 1080p60 video - we have great service providers (T-mobile) here who believe 15Mbit upload on your phone is plenty enough. You can download in hundreds of Mbit speeds but you can upload using speeds from years ago.
Apparently, Firefox, NewPipe (YouTube) and Revenge (Discord). I expected Mihon (comic reader) instead of NewPipe, but I guess I've been watching more YouTube than I recall?
My daily app usage is pretty routine: I start each day with a suite of seven daily game apps* that help me wake up while I drink my coffee. The rest of the day is mostly Safari and ChatGPT (with periodic checking of communication apps like Messages, Mail, and Discord). My usage metrics reflect this, though Messages ranked higher than I expected. I don’t really text that much. I wonder if it’s including time the app is working in the background? On my Mac I always leave the Messages app open in its own space, and that communicates heavily with the iOS version, so I wonder if that’s skewing the stats.
*For the curious, my daily game apps (in this order, which I’m weirdly compulsive about) are:
a. Wend
b. Patches
c. Zip
d. Queens
e. Crossclimb
f. Pinpoint
a. Categories
b. Wordle
c. Spelling Bee
Thanks for the call-out 🙂. Glad it made your list of daily games.
I predict Firefox Focus, Messages, and Music, in that order.
Turns out it was Firefox Focus (6h), Messages (5h), and CoMaps (4h), an open source maps application. I did drive to multiple cities some distance away this week, so that’s where that came from. WhatsApp and Music were #4 and #5, respectively, with about 2h on each.
I'm guessing NYT Games (Spelling Bee is my jam), Instagram, and...Ice Cubes, which is a Mastodon client.
And yup I was right! But the actual order is Instagram (2:20hrs), NYT Games (1:52hrs), and Ice Cubes (48min).
Firefox (32min) and Waze (25min) round out the Top 5.
I thought it was Firefox, Instagram, and Gmail. It is actually Firefox, Instagram, and Messages.
Great question!
My guess: Three Cheers for Tildes, Reddit, Safari
Actual: YouTube, ChatGPT, Reddit
Apple combined my iPad and phone usage. Basically all of that YouTube is from my iPad. I don't really consider iPad usage against my "phone app" usage.
Actual phone only: chatGPT, Reddit, Harmony (Three cheers in a close 4th place)
I am moderately surprised by ChatGPT. I have been using it a lot on 5.5 high, especially for advice on my TV calibration project. On high, it sometimes takes a long time to answer. I think a bunch of this time is me shooting a query off and doing something else while my phone screen is on.
The real surprise is Harmony. In my new TV project, I had to reprogram my harmony hub remote for the new TV. The harmony app is extremely slow and janky, so a bunch of screen time isn't too surprising. Also can I throw out a mini rant? Why on earth did Logitech discontinue the harmony device line? It is still absolutely fantastic. And for some absurd reason nobody has made a replacement for the harmony hub specifically. If you aren't aware, the harmony hub is a small device that you install in your TV cabinet. It sends the ir signals, so it can work when the cabinet is closed. You control the hub through your phone or through a specific hub remote that communicates to the hub with bluetooth, not IR. That way your remote works from anywhere, including under blankets or around corners. Absolutely fantastic design. And the only device I have been able to find that does something similar is the sofabaton, which has a remote that is gigantic (no thanks, the harmony one is about as big as I want) and costs three hundred dollars (the harmony hub and remote was around $80 if I remember right. Ugh. The app still works on iOS 27, and Logitech hasn't shutdown the servers (required for any config changes), so I will be holding on to mine as long as possible.
I guessed Claude, Firefox, Wikipedia.
But my phone (P9P) only shows usage day by day, not week by week, so I can't tell :(
I thought it would be Firefox, Claude, and Hevy, and it was.
I expected Firefox, Spotify and K-9 mail, but it was actually Firefox, Google Maps and Soundcorset. Definitely used Spotify more than Google Maps (had music on while navigating), but apparently it doesn't count in te background. Forgot I drove a lot this week.
I suppose I mostly thought of the apps I waste time with, didn't really think of the more actually useful apps.
Same for me and libby. I've listened to it a lot this week, but the listening time doesn't seem to be counted in my app use, so it didn't make the top 3.
I really only ever use my browser and Signal, so...
Probably the alarmclock app, the sms/rcs chat and a meditation timer. I barely use the phone for anything.
My guess:
Firefox - I'm often browsing here or another forum and looking up random stuff
Messages - Frequently texting friends and family
Blackplayer EX - I usually have music going, but it's a tossup between that and Pocket Casts, depending on whether I'm in the mood for music or podcasts
Actual:
Depending on the day (not sure if I can look at overall) Firefox and Messages are switching between slots 1 and 2. Slot 3 seems to be a wildcard. Sometimes it's Weather, To Do (I'm going on a road trip, so these make sense), Phone, Etc. it's constantly changing, with no consistent entry.
my guess is Revanced (alt youtube client), Firefox (for tildes, my other forums, and general internet-doing), and VLC.
...turns out I can't actually confirm if thats true or not bc i have turned off digital wellbeing lol. but, considering I have revanced or vlc running pretty much constantly when I'm not sleeping and that i kill time with forums, I think I'm probably pretty close ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
honorable mention to xhs, I'm sure theres weeks when it makes the top 3 lol
I predicted Firefox, Discord, Podcast Addict, and interestingly my results are quite different
I think a good bit of that is screen time being the metric meaning Podcast Addict usage gets lost; it can probably be roughly approximated with puzzle games (Nonogram Galaxy, Arrows), if we do so it becomes closer to what I'd expect
I think I have a bit of perception bias because I use discord on my computer a lot more than my phone, but I was surprised to see Reddit so high. Dating apps didn't occur to me when thinking about what apps I use, but it makes sense!
I've done a lot to slim down my "app bloat" so I don't have very many apps that I use. But, after looking it up, it matches with my expectations:
Firefox, by far. I don't use website apps, I just go to the website. The apps are usually restrictive and drain my battery because of who knows what going on behind the scenes. For example, youtube I can watch just fine without ads on Firefox mobile. There are a few "bugs" but it's way better than seeing advertisements all the time while trying to watch a video. It's without a doubt my primary app.
Shonen Jump, as it's become my "I need something to read that isn't the news" app. My phone is large enough to read the comics on it (a S23 Ultra) so I've been taking full use of one of my few subscriptions
Google Maps. It's how I find new places to try, or plan routes to get somewhere. I also use it to keep lists of restaurants we like and others we want to try. There's also using it when driving to get a heads up when traffic is bad enough to get around.
FairEmail, Waterfox, Moon+ Reader Pro.
I don't use LLMs, play games, or watch video much on my phone, but it's my primary e-book device.
With a 6+ inch screen, there isn't really a reason to use a dedicated e-reader other than battery life. When traveling, I use an external battery that's more than sufficient to get my phone to the next charger, so again, no need for an extra device. I paid for Moon+ Reader Pro years ago, and it's still among the best of the reading apps for extensive format compatibility, configurability, and visual optimizations.
Moon+ Reader Pro has been the single best app purchase I've made. I use it almost everyday and it really transformed my reading habbit.
When I was finishing university I figured I'd try out ereading as my responsibilities had tailed down and I also wanted to cut down on how much time I spent on Reddit. I switched my reddit app with Moon+ Reader and went from reading ~6-7 paper books in a year to an extra 20-30 books a year by ereading instead of scrolling/browsing.
Mine was way off and interesting (at least to me) as a result. My guess:
Actual:
I checked the usage and messages and email were quite far down on the list. I was questioning my perception of time and how I spend it, but then I checked out the digital well-being a bit. I found out that if you answer or read from the notifications drop-down it doesn't actually trigger that as time spent in any application. I figured out that I most commonly read things from the notifications area, she even respond from the notification area with some frequency.
So I think my actual most used application is probably the notification drop down.
Without a doubt it would be:
I use my phone mostly like a feature phone that can play music 99% of the time.
Smart AudioBoook Player (I listen to audiobooks constantly)
Google Docs (I use it for all my work documentation when I'm doing field contract work)
Chrome
I thought it would be web browser, discord, and signal. It’s actually web browser, discord, and maps. It makes sense, I don’t really consider using maps to be using an app, but I use it every day because I’m hopelessly lost otherwise. You could drop off 15 minutes down the road from where I live and I’d never come back.
Same as always, tmux (terminal emulator), Firefox, Antennapod. Oh and Goguma (chat) has to be up there too. Looking at that list I think I am pretty close to being able to de-google.
firefox, spotify, and books. not very exciting.
I guessed: Firefox, Libby, Google Maps
"Actual" listed: Firefox, Maps, Signal
That said, I think my guess is more accurate, but my Libby use isn't being counted as active use. I've listened to far more audiobook time than the time listed for either Maps or Signal.
Firefox, Fastmail, Discord.
I mostly don’t install native apps on my phone as so many offer little over web apps and use that extra access to spam me with notifications or track me for ads. Add YouTube Music, antennapod and WhatsApp and you’ve got the full list.