A real cost on phone time at dinner.

Roberts and David coined the term "phubbing" (phone-snubbing) in their 2016 paper in Computers in Human Behavior. Their work, and follow-up studies, found that partner phone use during shared time correlates with lower reported relationship satisfaction. The mechanism is not surprising: attention is the basic currency of intimacy, and the phone is a competitor for it.

What individual screen-time apps cannot solve is the social half of the loop. If your phone use is your private problem, every conversation about it eventually feels like a lecture from one partner to the other. A shared mechanism, with both partners on the same tool and the same accountability surface, takes the conversation off the table and puts it in the app.

ScreenFine's partner mode is built around that shift. Both sides agree on the daily limit, both sides install the app, both sides see when the other goes over. The redemption (pushups, steps, mindful minutes) is something either partner can clock. The fine is a fact, not a fight.

Each partner generates a 6-character invite code in Settings and shares it with the other. Once linked, each side's home screen shows the other's daily usage, streak count, and current week lock total. Locks are private to the device they trigger on; only the count and the redemption status are shared.

Either partner can leave partner mode at any time without affecting their own subscription. The link is mutual but not coercive. There is no shared payment, no shared account, no merged calendar. Both subscriptions stay on their own Apple IDs at $1 a week each.

The point is the social layer over the individual mechanism. A solo lock is a lock. A lock the other person can see, with a redemption either of you can do together, is something closer to a household norm.