Hard Truth

iPhone app, iOS 18 or later

Hard Truth: Screen Time

Your screen time, projected forward. See what the hours add up to, then take them back.

4 hours a day, for 20 years

29,220 hours

That's 5 years of your waking life. Or 18 master's degrees. Or 38% of a walk to the Moon.

20 years, one dot per week. Every fourth week is red, because 4 hours is a quarter of a 16-hour waking day.

What the app does

  1. Enter your daily screen time

    Type it in, or pick a screenshot of the iOS Screen Time screen. The app reads the screenshot on your iPhone with Apple's text recognition and doesn't keep the image.

  2. See what it adds up to

    It projects your time forward, 20 years by default, and turns the total into about 300 truths: master's degrees, languages, books, marathons, a walk to the Moon. Each one shows its math and its source.

  3. Take the hours back

    The Path is the way off. Set a daily limit, choose what the reclaimed hours go toward, and check in each night. Streaks and milestones keep count, and you can share both the hard truth and your progress as cards.

    One year on the Path after cutting from 4 hours a day to 2. Half of the red weeks turn green.

No account. No server. No tracking.

The app has no sign-up, no analytics, no ads and no third-party code. Everything you enter is stored on your iPhone, not on a server, and we never see it. Its App Store privacy label says Data Not Collected.

Read the privacy policy

How the math works

Every number in the app can be checked. This is how they are made.

Total hours
Daily screen time × 365.25 days × the years you choose, 20 by default. Daily time is capped at your waking hours.
Waking life
Total hours ÷ (hours awake a day × 365.25). 16 waking hours a day by default.
Each truth
Every truth has an hour cost, the basis for that cost, and a source. Official numbers come from published requirements, research numbers from studies, and estimates show how they were worked out. Where there's a range, the app takes the slower end.
Rounding
Always down, never up. 18.8 master's degrees shows as 18. Below 1, you see the percentage of the way there.
Worked example
4 × 365.25 × 20 = 29,220 hours. 29,220 ÷ (16 × 365.25) = 5 years awake. A master's degree is 1,620 hours (36 credits × 45 hours, from the US federal credit-hour definition in 34 CFR 600.2), so 29,220 ÷ 1,620 = 18.04, shown as 18.

Support

Questions, bugs, or a number you think is wrong: email help@greezholdings.com. Answers to common questions are on the support page.