Apple's Screen Time was released with the iOS 12 update on September 17th. "With Screen Time, you can access real-time reports about how much time you spend on your iPhone and iPad, and set limits for what you want to manage."
The limits Screen Time lets you set are only as effective as the you-in-the-middle-of-using-an-app decides to let them be. There's an "Ignore Limit" button with the notification. But how many people will, finding out that they spend the national average of five hours a day looking at their smartphone, change their behavior out of newfound self-awareness, shame, or horror?
The June 4th announcement didn't seem to have any discernible impact on Facebook's share price. That's curious, assuming that the public didn't already know about Apple's new feature meant to curb the excesses of smartphone use, particularly social media apps like Facebook and IG, with clear implications for ads-per-eyeball-second. But maybe there's nothing for the markets to worry about; these tools are weak and, besides, marginally-less-addled workers are more productive.
I posted this because I find that I am so inured to new app features, and yet this capability was rolled out to billions of iOS devices. A search for news pertaining to Screen Time just returns press releases and tutorials. But this could conceivably affect the FAANG gravy train.
"It actually tells me how long I'm on hubski on my phone" Basically this. I don't have kids myself, but I use Screen Time because it lets me see how long I spent on my phone procrastinating. As someone who works from home, this app is especially useful to me. I didn't set a time limit, but maybe I should lol.
You have two questions here that should be related, but they're not. The first question is "what will the effects of Screen Time be on users?" to which my answer is "not much." People do not think of their time staring at their phone to be time dedicated solely to staring at their phone - they're multitasking therefore the counter is inaccurate. They also have nothing to compare it to - you don't know how much time everyone else spends surfing Instagram and you've never really thought about how much time you spend doing anything else. Screen Time will give you a number unmoored from perspective. The second question is "what will the effects of Screen Time be on stock valuations?" to which my answer is "not much for different reasons." 