How to Cut Screen Time in 2027 Without Quitting the Games You Like

Just over half of U.S. adults, 53%, say they spend too much time on their smartphone, according to a Pew Research Center survey published September 1, 2026. Another 36% say their time is about right, and just 3% say too little. If cutting your screen time is on your list for 2027, you're in good company.

Most January plans are bans. No games, no scrolling, delete the lot. Bans are hard to keep, though. Pew found that 45% of adults tried to cut back on their smartphone use over the past 12 months. Only a quarter of them say they were extremely or very successful.

This guide takes another route: keep the games you enjoy and cut the feeds that never end. You'll get exact settings for iPhone (iOS 27 and older) and Android, plus a monthly budget and a straight answer on deposit limits if you play for money. We make mobile games, so we'll be honest about which ones are designed to end.

Why is cutting back so hard, and why does quitting backfire?

Most people who try to cut back on their phone don't fully succeed. In a Pew Research Center survey of 9,750 U.S. adults (May 26 to June 1, 2026), 45% had tried to cut back in the past year. Only a quarter of those who tried said they were extremely or very successful.

Wanting to cut back and managing it are different things. Among adults who say they spend too much time on their phone, 62% have tried. Age matters too: seven in ten adults under 30 say they spend too much time on it, against a quarter of those 65 and older.

How U.S. adults rate their own smartphone time

Source: Pew Research Center, September 1, 2026 (n=9,750 U.S. adults). Self-reported. Remaining respondents not shown.

Trying isn't the hard part. Sticking with it is. Of the adults who tried, 52% say they were somewhat successful and 23% not too or not at all.

How it went for people who tried to cut back

Source: Pew Research Center, September 1, 2026. Base: U.S. adults who've tried to cut back in the past 12 months.

So what goes wrong? Part of it is timing. In the moment, five more minutes always sounds fine. In 2022, economists Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow and Lena Song published "Digital Addiction" in the American Economic Review. They found that "allowing people to set limits on their future screen time substantially reduces use." Their study covered social media, not games. Our takeaway is narrow: set the limit before you open the app.

Quitting outright has its own problem. In a 2020 PLOS ONE experiment on New Year's resolutions with 1,066 participants, 58.9% of people with approach-oriented goals (aiming to do something) considered themselves successful. Only 47.1% of those with avoidance-oriented goals (aiming to stop or avoid something) did.

The translation is ours; the paper doesn't make it. Swapping an hour of scrolling for one game is an approach goal. Deleting everything is an avoidance goal.

What should you check before you set a limit?

Start with your real numbers, not a guess. On an iPhone running iOS 27, Settings > Screen Time > Daily Average shows a daily or weekly summary of your most used apps, pickups and notifications. On Android, Settings > Digital Wellbeing charts screen time, times opened and notifications received for each app.

It's easy to blame the game you enjoy and overlook the feed you open without thinking. A week of real data settles it.

Write one number down: your daily average. That's your baseline. In a month, you'll check your progress against it.

Pickups count too. If you pick up your phone often but each session is short, look at notifications before you look at games.

Step 1: How do you swap endless feeds for games that end?

Replacing a habit works better than banning one. In a New Year's resolution experiment with 1,066 people (PLOS ONE, 2020), 58.9% of those with approach-oriented goals considered themselves successful, versus 47.1% with avoidance-oriented goals. Swapping an endless feed for a game with a finish line turns "stop scrolling" into an approach goal.

Here's the test we use. An app has a finish line if a session ends with a result without you deciding to stop. We've called this a built-in finish line before, in our guide to fun mobile games to play when you're bored. This time, it's the core of a plan.

Feeds fail the test. So do autoplay video and many idle, streak and energy-timer games, which are built to pull you back. A round of solitaire passes. So do a crossword, a word-search board and a single hand of cards. Each one stops and shows you a result.

The finish-line test

Our framework. Examples are generic game types, not specific apps.

Where does the time go, and what can you swap in?

In its State of Mobile 2026 report, published January 2026, Sensor Tower counted 5.3 trillion hours spent in apps in 2025, roughly 3.6 hours per day per mobile user. Its press release adds that social platforms took nearly 2.5 trillion of those hours, "far outpacing any other category." In other words, the bigger block of time is usually the feed.

A fair warning from a game maker: games that end still try to keep you. Many put a "play again" button right on the results screen. The finish line only helps if you treat that screen as the exit. Close the app there, and the swap works.

One small study capped social media directly. In 2018, Melissa Hunt and colleagues ran a three-week study with 143 University of Pennsylvania undergraduates (Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology). One group was limited to 10 minutes per platform per day on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. That group showed significant reductions in loneliness and depression compared with the control group. It's one small social media study, not a promise about games.

If your scroll happens on a commute, see our productive things to do on your phone during your commute. Cut the endless part first, then decide what fills the gap.

Step 2: How do you set game limits on iPhone?

Apple renamed iPhone's screen-time limits in iOS 27. Time Allowances now set daily time for categories such as Games, Entertainment and Social Media, and a Screen Time Schedule sets when apps are available. On iOS 26 and earlier, App Limits and Downtime do those jobs, and Apple notes that by default, limits can be ignored once reached.

Most guides online still teach the old names. On September 23, 2026, Apple's iPhone User Guide opened on iOS 27. Where its iOS 26 page says App Limits and Downtime, the iOS 27 page says Time Allowances and Screen Time Schedule. Check your version, then use the matching column.

On iOS 27: set it up in five steps

1. Open Settings, tap Screen Time, then tap Time Allowances.
2. Tap Games and drag the slider to a daily amount. Give Social Media a smaller allowance than Games. That's the swap in settings form.
3. Optional: turn on Match Screen Time Schedule to use your allowances during certain times in your schedule.
4. Tap Screen Time Schedule, turn on Schedule, tap Add Schedule and pick your days. In each Time Window, choose which Time Allowance categories are available, such as Games in the evening but not Social Media.
5. Lock it: tap Manage Screen Time, then Lock Screen Time Settings. Better yet, let a partner or friend type the four-digit code (our suggestion, not Apple's).

How do allowances stack? Apple: "You can use apps within each category until they reach either the category's allowance or the daily total." If you turn on Screen Time Passcode Recovery, your Apple Account can reset a forgotten code, which is also a way around your own lock.

Apple's iOS 27 pages don't say what the limit screen offers when an allowance runs out, and we haven't tested it. Assume it may offer more time unless you've locked it.

One more catch: Apple says Screen Time Schedules and Time Allowances need iOS 27 "or later on all your Apple devices." If an iPad or Mac on your account hasn't updated, update it before you count on Time Allowances. Apple doesn't say how an iOS 27 iPhone behaves in the meantime.

On iOS 26 or earlier

Use the right-hand column. Apple's iOS 26 guide is blunt: "By default, Screen Time limits can be ignored once reached." Set a Screen Time passcode and turn on Block at Downtime, and restricted apps can't be opened during downtime; they appear dimmed with an hourglass icon.

Step 3: How do you set app timers and Focus mode on Android?

Android's Digital Wellbeing sets a daily timer for each app. Google says that when you run out of time, "the app closes and its icon dims," and app timers reset at midnight. Focus mode pauses the apps you choose, and their notifications, on demand or on a schedule. An App limits PIN stops quick changes.

Android's controls live in Digital Wellbeing. Google's help page carries a caveat worth repeating once: "Some of these steps may vary based on your device." If you can't find the menu, search your Settings app for "Digital Wellbeing."

On Android: set it up in four steps

1. Open Settings > Digital Wellbeing > App timers. Next to your main feed app, tap Set timer, pick a short daily time and tap OK.
2. Give the game you're keeping a longer timer. The feed should run out first.
3. Turn on an App limits PIN so a change takes more than one tap. Google advises you not to share that PIN, so treat it as a speed bump you set for yourself.
4. Open Focus mode, choose your feed apps, and tap Set a schedule for your evenings.

Bedtime is where Google's own pages disagree. One puts Bedtime mode under Digital Wellbeing; the other puts it under Settings > Modes, so check both. Grayscale is one of its documented screen options. If you sleep in the daytime, our night-shift games guide covers the last hour before day sleep.

One small print item from Google: "Some work and school accounts might not work with app timers."

Step 4: How do you keep a limit from ending a paid match?

If you play skill games for money, including ours, one more rule matters. Atay Games' cash matches run on Skillz, operated by Firy Inc (NYSE: FIRY, formerly SKLZ). New to the platform? Here's who Skillz and Firy are.

A screen-time limit can cost you a paid match. Skillz marks a match "Aborted" when the game crashes, disconnects or is put in the background mid-play, and "the opposing player is automatically awarded with winning the match and any corresponding prizes." Start paid matches only when your time window has room to finish them.

Two documented rules collide here:

• Google (Android): when an app timer runs out, "the app closes and its icon dims."
• Skillz: its help article on Aborted matches lists "When the game is put in the background in the middle of the gameplay while you answer a call/message" as a cause. "If the game was paused for a long period of time" is another. Skillz's documentation for game developers adds that "if the OS terminates the app it is still considered Backgrounded."

Put those together, and this is our reading of both documents: an Android app timer that runs out mid-match can end that match as Aborted. Apple doesn't document what an iPhone does when an allowance or limit hits mid-game, so treat it the same way. We haven't tested either one ourselves.

If a match aborts anyway, here's what to do if a match aborts, including what to put in a support ticket.

Step 5: How do you set a monthly budget for cash games?

A cash-game budget works best as one planned deposit a month that you never top up. Skillz says deposited funds must be played in matches before they're eligible for withdrawal, charges $1.50 on withdrawals under $10, and forfeits bonus cash when you withdraw. Frequent small deposits and withdrawals cost more than one monthly cycle.

This is our method, a suggestion rather than a Skillz feature. Treat the number as entertainment money, like a night out, not income.

1. Pick a monthly number you'd be fine never seeing again.
2. Deposit it once, on a set date. Skillz: "Deposited funds must be played in matches before they're eligible for withdrawal." Depositing "just in case" locks money into play.
3. Log each entry (date, game, entry, result) in your notes app, or check the match history in the app.
4. Stop when it's gone. When the month's deposit runs out, you're done until next month. No top-ups.
5. Leave pending withdrawals alone. Skillz says "you can cancel your pending withdrawal and use those funds to play," and "While a withdrawal is pending, you may not deposit additional funds." Our advice: let it go through.
6. Cash out once, at month end, in one withdrawal of $10 or more. Skillz: "There is a $1.50 charge for any withdrawals under $10." Bonus cash "is forfeited when you make a withdrawal" (here's how bonus cash works).

Where does the money go? Per Skillz's withdrawal article, withdrawals up to what you've deposited go back to the card or PayPal you used, oldest deposit first. In the US, winnings above your deposits go by paper check, which Skillz says to expect in 4-6 weeks, or to an Aeropay-linked bank account, usually in under 24 business hours.

Winnings don't refill the budget. Withdraw them at month end instead of re-entering them.

What does a long break cost on Skillz?

Stepping away for a while has documented costs of its own.

Planning a long break? Withdraw what you want to keep first. Skillz's maintenance-fee article also notes that logging in to "play a free match" avoids the fee.

Can you set deposit limits or self-exclude on Skillz?

Skillz doesn't document a deposit-limit, cool-off or self-exclusion setting. We checked all 119 English articles in its help center and its User Terms on September 23, 2026. Its documented option is closing your account with a support ticket or an email to support@skillz.com with the subject "Skillz Account Deletion."

What we checked. On September 23, 2026, we searched every English Skillz help article and the User Terms for deposit limits, time-outs, cool-offs and self-exclusion, and found none. That's what Skillz publishes, not necessarily all that support can do.

How do you close a Skillz account?

Skillz's article How do I close my account? gives two routes:

• In the app: "Tap the Menu button located at the bottom-right corner of the screen." Then "Select Contact Support from the options," and "At the top of the screen, change the subject to Skillz Account Deletion." Labels can vary by game and app version.
• By email: write to support@skillz.com from "the email associated with your Skillz account," with the subject line Skillz Account Deletion.

Withdraw first, then ask to close. Skillz's User Terms (updated May 22, 2025) say funds in a closed account are returned under section 8.5. That section pays out "by check or by refund to the payment method used to make your deposit," which "may take up to ninety (90) days." And "Bonus Funds cannot be withdrawn." If a withdrawal is stuck, raise it with Skillz support before you ask to close.

What can you do short of closing?

Ask Skillz support what it can do for your account. Skillz doesn't publish an answer.

Device blocks you control don't replace real help, but they add distance:

• Android: Google's own tip for blocking an app is to "create an App limits PIN and set the time limit for the app to zero."
• iPhone: set the lowest Games allowance you can, then have someone you trust set the Lock Screen Time Settings code.
• Either phone: delete the app.

When should you call? The World Health Organization describes gaming disorder by "impaired control over gaming," "increasing priority given to gaming over other activities" and continued gaming despite negative consequences. It adds that the disorder "affects only a small proportion" of people who game. Use that as a pointer, not a test.

What mistakes make screen-time limits fail?

Limits fail when they're easy to wave away. Apple's own guide notes that by default, Screen Time limits can be ignored once reached, and economists Allcott, Gentzkow and Song estimated that self-control problems cause 31 percent of social media use. Lock your limits with a passcode someone else sets.

1. Banning everything on January 1. Avoidance goals did worse than approach goals in the PLOS ONE study: 47.1% versus 58.9% self-rated success.
2. Limits you can dismiss. Apple's iOS 26 guide says limits can be ignored "by default." Use Lock Screen Time Settings (iOS 27), Block at Downtime (iOS 26) or an App limits PIN. Friction helps. A 2023 PNAS study tested one sec, a third-party app that adds a pause before a chosen app opens. It "decreased users' actual opening of target apps by 57% after six consecutive weeks." We don't endorse any app; the point is the pause.
3. Capping games but not the feed. Social platforms took nearly 2.5 trillion hours of app time in 2025, per Sensor Tower.
4. A window that closes mid-match. Paid play goes at the start of the window (Step 4).
5. Topping up mid-month or cancelling a pending withdrawal. Both break the budget (Step 5).
6. Following an old guide. iOS 27 renamed the menus. If a tutorial says App Limits and you're on iOS 27, look for Time Allowances.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line on Cutting Screen Time

You don't have to quit the games you like to get your time back in 2027. Sort your apps by finish line, swap the feeds for games that end, and lock your limits so they hold. Most people who try to cut back don't fully succeed, and a ban is the harder goal to keep.

If you play for money, keep paid matches at the start of your window and run everything through one monthly deposit. Then start small. Tonight, set one limit: the feed you open most, not the game you like. When you do play for money, practice free before you pay.

Sources

• Pew Research Center, About half of Americans say they spend too much time on their smartphone (William Bishop, Olivia Sidoti and Monica Anderson; published September 1, 2026; survey May 26 to June 1, 2026, n=9,750), retrieved 2026-09-23, pewresearch.org
• Oscarsson, Carlbring, Andersson and Rozental, A large-scale experiment on New Year's resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals, PLOS ONE 15(12) (December 9, 2020), retrieved 2026-09-23, journals.plos.org
• Allcott, Gentzkow and Song, Digital Addiction, American Economic Review 112(7) (2022; NBER working paper w28936, June 2021), retrieved 2026-09-23, aeaweb.org and nber.org
• Grüning, Riedel and Lorenz-Spreen, Directing smartphone use through the self-nudge app one sec, PNAS 120(8) (February 16, 2023), read via PubMed Central, retrieved 2026-09-23, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Hunt, Marx, Lipson and Young, No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 37(10) (2018), abstract checked 2026-09-23, guilfordjournals.com
• Sensor Tower, State of Mobile 2026 (report blog, January 2026; 5.3 trillion hours, about 3.6 hours a day), retrieved 2026-09-23, sensortower.com; and press release State of Mobile 2026: App Spending Reaches $167 Billion (January 2026; nearly 2.5 trillion hours on social platforms), retrieved 2026-09-24, sensortower.com/press
• Apple Support, iPhone User Guide (iOS 27), Set Screen Time Schedules and Time Allowances in Screen Time on iPhone, retrieved 2026-09-23, support.apple.com
• Apple Support, iPhone User Guide (iOS 27), Set up Screen Time for yourself on iPhone (Daily Average, Pickups and Notifications, Share Across Devices), retrieved 2026-09-23, support.apple.com
• Apple Support, iPhone User Guide (iOS 27), Create, change, or remove a Screen Time passcode on iPhone (Lock Screen Time Settings, Passcode Recovery), retrieved 2026-09-23, support.apple.com
• Apple Support, iPhone User Guide (iOS 26), Set schedules with Screen Time on iPhone (App Limits, Downtime, Block at Downtime), retrieved 2026-09-23, support.apple.com
• Android Help, Manage how you spend time on your Android phone with Digital Wellbeing, article 9346420 (undated), retrieved 2026-09-23, support.google.com
• Android Help, Limit interruptions with Modes & Do Not Disturb on Android, article 9069335 (undated), retrieved 2026-09-23, support.google.com
• Skillz help center, What is an Aborted match?, article 8778934866580 (text last edited August 23, 2022, page updated August 1, 2026), retrieved 2026-09-23, support.skillz.com
• Skillz developer documentation, Best Practices For Aborted Matches and Forfeits in Skillz Games (no page date shown), retrieved 2026-09-23, docs.skillz.com
• Skillz help center, How do I close my account?, article 30884677772564 (text last edited December 11, 2024, page updated August 15, 2026), retrieved 2026-09-23, support.skillz.com
• Skillz help center, How do withdrawals work?, article 203685739 (play-through rule, routing, 4-6 weeks by check, pending withdrawals, $1.50 under $10, bonus cash forfeited on withdrawal; text last edited February 2, 2026, page updated August 5, 2026), retrieved 2026-09-23, support.skillz.com
• Skillz help center, Skillz + Aeropay: Secure Bank Transfers Made Easy, article 37471978518676, retrieved 2026-09-23, support.skillz.com
• Skillz help center, Why did I receive a notification of a maintenance fee?, article 360057419731 (updated September 19, 2024), retrieved 2026-09-23, support.skillz.com
• Skillz, User Terms and Conditions of Service (Updated as of May 22, 2025), sections 8.4, 8.5, 8.6 and 8.7, retrieved 2026-09-23, skillz.com/legal
• National Council on Problem Gambling, National Council on Problem Gambling Adopts 1-800-MY-RESET as New National Problem Gambling Helpline Number (January 29, 2026), retrieved 2026-09-23, ncpgambling.org; and the helpline chat page, retrieved 2026-09-23, ncpgambling.org/chat
• World Health Organization, Gaming disorder (Q&A), retrieved 2026-09-23, who.int
• Atay Games first-party check: all 119 English articles in the Skillz help center, pulled through the public help-center API, and the Skillz User Terms, searched for deposit limits, spending limits, time-outs, cool-offs and self-exclusion, September 23, 2026 (none found).

About this guide. This is general information based on Apple's and Google's help pages, Pew Research Center, published research, and Skillz's public help center and terms as retrieved on September 23, 2026. Menus and policies change, and Android steps vary by phone. It is not medical, legal or financial advice. We haven't tested what each limit does to a match in progress, and we make no claim that any mode pauses or resumes. Atay Games makes skill-based games that run on Skillz, so read our view with that in mind. Real-money play is 18+ and availability depends on where you live. For free, confidential help with gambling, call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738) or chat at ncpgambling.org/chat.