About ScreenLab

ScreenLab tracks the time you spend on distracting sites and apps, then adds features to your browser that make addictive sites easier to ignore. Over time, it learns what works best to reduce distracted time for you.

Take out sleep, and the average adult will spend the majority of their life looking at screens. For many, that time feels more like a compulsion than a choice.

Excessive screen time has been linked to:

• Anxiety and depression
• Sleep issues
• Reduced attention span
• Diminished social skills

And that's before considering the broader societal impacts.

We created ScreenLab to offer an evidence-based approach to reclaiming your attention and minimizing distracted screen time.

ScreenLab began as a hobby project in 2022. We studied volunteer screen time patterns and built simple prediction engines to understand what drives social media overuse.

Later, we tested tools designed to reduce distraction, measuring what worked best for different user types. Excited by the data, in 2026 we began releasing tools to the public aimed at reducing distracted time.

I'm John Bayne. I've spent most of my career in nonprofit technology.

• I was VP of Engineering at charity: water, a nonprofit that has built wells for over 20 million people across Africa & Asia.
• I led tech at Sama (previously samasource.org), which has employed over 15,000 underprivileged youth & refugees across East Africa & India.
• I developed biometric tech at Kiva to provide microfinance in communities too remote for existing solutions.

In 2014, I was living in Kenya and became interested in correlations between social media and violence. That led to a broader interest in how screen time affects us. Since 2022, I've worked exclusively on screen time issues. ScreenLab is the first public release from that research.

ScreenLab has two parts:

• The desktop app runs in the background on your computer. It tracks how much time you spend on distracting/productive sites & apps.
• The browser extension allows us to make distracting sites less addictive.

Together, they allow us to quantify what works best to reduce your distraction.

We’re based in New York City, USA. Contact us, we'd love to hear from you.