How To: Keep Your Smartphone Usage in Check for Android & iPhone

We're living through the technological revolution, and while devices like the iPhone 6 or Galaxy S5 have made life easier and more entertaining, it's possible that sometimes our smartphone usage can become uncomfortably excessive. In your own experience, think about how anxious and off you feel when you leave your phone at home—Cell Phone Separation Anxiety or Phantom Phone Vibrations shouldn't be a real thing that we deal with.

You could use beer to combat cell phone addiction, but today we'll be going over one simple app that can help you keep your usage in check—by smacking you in the face with it.

Checky the Addiction Counter

Checky is a easy-to-use app, as it really only does one thing: keep count of how many times you unlock your phone. It may seem simplistic, but how are you supposed to limit your usage if you can't easily monitor it?

Checky is avialable for free from the Google Play Store and iOS App Store, so download it now to start start on your path on cellphone independency.

What Gets Measured, Gets Improved

Once you've installed the app, just open it. Anytime you unlock your device, it will be tallied as one "check". Below the number of checks, you can also view previous usage and share results with friends, as healthy competition is a great motivator. Under the settings, you can toggle the option to receive a daily notification (at noon) of how many times you've checked your phone in the previous day.

With the iOS version, you can actually keep track of where you're checking your device with Location Services enabled, and while it may seem a little stalker-ish, the feature can be useful to see whether your checking your device at an increased clip more at home, work, or out-and-about.

Keep in mind that there are plenty of factors on any given day that can skew this number—maybe you're in an active conversation thread, or you're ferociously refreshing to check a sports score—but Checky should provide an overall view of just how much you're using your gadget on a daily basis. And don't worry, because only unlocks are counted, if you're a forgetful time-checker like me, the clock on the lock screen will keep from affecting your Checky number.

Let us know if Checky helped you better gauge your cell phone usage in the comments section below, as well as on our Facebook and Twitter feeds.