For the last decade or so, it’s been common to hear people voicing their concern over the amount of hours people are spending on their phones. In the not-to-distant past, it was adults telling teenagers to get off their phones and play outside. Though nowadays, thanks to the invention of the easily accessible Smart Phones, people aged between eighteen to twenty-four are spending around two hours and fifty one minutes on phones every day, this is according to a study in 2017.

So it appears that these young adults seem to be just as bad as the teenagers of ye-olde-mid-2000s, even though they are old enough to know better. Over half of that time is spent on the most popular apps, such as Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and of course YouTube.

‘Procrastination’ is a relatable word that is thrown around by the youth of today more and more, and you wouldn’t be wrong in assuming that phones have something to do with this. It’s evident that the more time people spend on their phones,the less time they spend doing productive activities. Considering productivity goes hand in hand with time management you can see other areas of concern related to the issue, and we all know poorly managed time can be frustrating for a number of reasons. Only 9% of people said they were satisfied with their time allocation skills, so it is clear why time management apps have become so popular. Mobile apps such as Clear, Workflow and Wunderlist, have been marketed to help boost productivity such as, organising information a user puts in to the app.

It’s human nature to be frustrated by inefficiency, so if there’s an app which says it can counteract that, then of course the app becomes more appealing. However if and when the app doesn’t work, or rather does work but isn’t making us as productive as we want it to, we get frustrated again and stop using the app altogether.

The article suggests that some apps are genuinely helpful, however you don’t need to be using productivity apps to be a functional member of society. In fact, another article has suggested that simply using apps which don’t even market themselves as productivity apps, such as travel or e-commerce apps, can help take the stress out of daily life.

So it’s still up for debate whether apps can make a person more or less productive, but since 80% of the population feel less stressed when they rely on apps, this is undoubtedly a positive. If people are less stressed, they can then spend more time on productive activities and feel happier doing so.

Statistics of time spent on phones
https://hackernoon.com/how-much-time-do-people-spend-on-their-mobile-phones-in-2017-e5f90a0b10a6

Procrastination
http://creatingpositivefutures.com/12-reasons-why-students-procrastinate/

Time management skills
https://www.activia.co.uk/soft-skills/how-poor-time-management-can-affect-a-business

A study stating frequent app users feel less stress
http://www.softwaretestingnews.co.uk/survey-finds-frequent-app-users-have-higher-levels-of-productivity/

Are Productivity apps having an opposite effect?
https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/comment/are-productivity-apps-actually-slowing-us-down-1.722352

Examples of time management apps
https://www.shopify.co.uk/blog/116302533-9-time-management-apps-to-organize-your-life-and-keep-you-on-track