GoKawiil
Tech News
A new device called Minimal Phone 2 is being positioned around statistics showing people average 186 phone pickups, 4.5 hours of screen time, and 152 notifications daily. The product's messaging frames modern smartphones as engineered to maximize engagement through feeds and alerts rather than genuine utility.
Android Authority found new code in a Digital Wellbeing beta build (version 1.47.964183037) showing Google testing a redesigned interface with a Material Expressive look. The changes include a reworked app activity dashboard, multi-app selection for setting shared daily timers, and a restructured Bedtime mode that removes collapsible sections and reorders elements like Bedtime routine and Weekly average.
Code strings found in a beta version of Google's Digital Wellbeing app reveal an in-development feature called Weekly wrap, which would send users a notification summarizing their phone usage over the past week. Rather than requiring users to manually check screen-time stats, the tool would proactively surface personalized insights based on existing usage data, likely powered by Gemini Nano.
In testimony from an ongoing lawsuit filed by 29 states against Meta, a former company data scientist revealed that only about 0.165% to 0.2% of teens actually used Instagram's Take a Break feature when it was opt-in, despite Meta previously claiming 90% adoption. The tool, meant to nudge users to pause after extended app use, is now enabled by default for teen accounts following the criticism.