What's a realistic way to reduce screen time that actually lasts?

Detoxes fail for the same reason crash diets do: they treat a structural problem as a willpower event. The version that lasts is boring environmental engineering: 1. Audit before acting: check WHICH apps own your 6.5 hours. It's usually 2–3 apps and 80% of the time. You don't have a screen problem; you have a specific-app problem — much more solvable. 2. Add friction to the heavy hitters: log out after each use (long password, not saved), delete the app and use the browser version (worse on purpose), move it off the home screen into a folder named what it costs you. Each step gives autopilot a moment to wake up — most opens are unconscious, and friction converts them into decisions. 3. Kill the triggers: notifications off for everything that isn't a human directly addressing you. Grayscale mode is surprisingly powerful — feeds are engineered in color. 4. Replace, don't vacate: the phone fills boredom-gaps (queues, toilet, pre-sleep). Decide what fills them instead — a book on the pillow, a podcast queued. An empty gap refills with the old habit by default. 5. One structural fence: no phone in the bedroom (₹300 alarm clock) trims 30–60 minutes off both ends of the day and improves sleep as a bonus. Target realistic numbers: 6.5 → 3.5–4 sustained beats 6.5 → 1.5 for a weekend. And expect the itch for ~2 weeks; it's withdrawal from variable-reward training, and it passes.