Distractor

Mobile devices have provided many benefits to our daily lifes. However, they also challenge us by providing attractive contents
that may entice us to spent more time on our phones than we planned in advance. Our brain is wired to find the attractive
contents of mobile devices rewarding, which may hamper our ability to disengage from these activities. The reward value related to
the use of mobile devices makes them potentially highly addictive in nature.

In order to control the time spend on a phone, it is possible to provide solutions that are based on external controls. For an example,
it is possible to restrict the time when a phone is accessible. However, eventhough these solutions may be usable, they may not increase
the user's internal control over the use of mobile devices.

As we try to balance the benefits and the risks that mobile devices provide us, it is important that we increase our internal
control over their attractiveness. This is very important, especially among children. Children’s brains are at a developing stage and
therefore highly sensitive to enviromental experiences. Mobile devices may hamper their possibilities to engage in real life social
interactions with other people, which is known to be vital for the development of social and regulatory skills.

The distractor application provides a solution to increase the awareness of the passage of time whilst using mobile devices and to
distract attention from engaging contents. It provides a playful way to control and track time spent on the phone. A user
may select from several types of distractors that are colourful animations or tones. The selected distractor will appear on the phone screen
at desired time periods to inform the user that a selected time period has been spent on the phone. In addition, the application will show the
number of time periods consumed on the phone.

The application is a great tool for parents to control their child’s mobile phone usage. Parents can give their permission to a child to play
until a selected distractor appears, or until a selected distractor has appeared a certain number of times. The use of the application may help a
child to understand the abstract concept of time as the application makes a selected time interval visible by the
appearance of a distractor.