Google’s new live wallpaper will guilt you into using your phone less

Last night, Google released six new Android apps under its digital wellbeing program to balance your digital diet. These apps ranges from a special launcher to serve up relevant apps based on the time of the day and location, to a group game that challenges you and your friends not to unlock your phone.

However, the most simple, and perhaps the most effective app is a live wallpaper app. Unlock Clock, as the name suggests, is a live wallpaper that’ll show you the number of times you’ve unlocked your phone on a particular day.

Your unlock count for the day as a live wallpaper on Android

The idea is solid: to make you feel guilty about the times when you unlocked the phone to do nothing, or just check Instagram when you were bored.

There isn’t really a set target to aim for, as we all use our phones differently. But it certainly helps to start quantifying your dependence on your phone as a cure for boredom, and to get a sense of what it’s like when you consciously try to cut down on that. Hopefully, it’ll help train you to stop picking up your phone every so often, and you won’t even need the app after a while.

You can download Unlock Clock from here, and read more about Google’s new digital wellbeing experiment here.

Story by Ivan Mehta

Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That's one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say "Bleh." Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That's one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say "Bleh."

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