You know this screen. If you’re like many smartphone users, you probably see it hundreds of times a day. This is the protection that your smartphone affords you from friends, strangers, and general miscreants who want access into your phone for who knows what.

And I think it’s a huge waste of time and energy.

First, a few questions:

1. What on earth are you hiding? Are you married and checking up on your AshleyMadison account? Take considering a screen lock as an easy wake-up call: You don’t need password protection. What you DO need to address the source of the problem: the fact that you’re doing something totally inappropriate.
2. Are you worried that a friend or significant other might want to peek in for some reason? Please. None of your friends care about your email history. Even if they did (or, even if you’re just paranoid of as much), you’re again not addressing the source of the problem. (Hint: Your friends are creeps. Time to find new ones.)Alternatively, assuming we’re in some bizarro world and they do want to have access, you think a 4-digit code is going to stop them?Here’s what your obsessive counterparty is thinking: A) I can probably just figure out your phone unlock key by hanging out with you and peering over your shoulder (in fact, I can prompt this by just sending you a text message while I’m standing in front of you). B) I could probably just ask you for your code. What, you’re hesitant about telling me, your trusted friend/significant other what your phone unlock key is? What does that imply about what you’re actually doing on there? (See #1 above.)
3. You’re worried about a burglar or something? Stop watching so much CSI. You’re not that important. If your phone gets stolen, the thief probably doesn’t care at all who you are. He’s probably going to factory reset the phone and then sell it on eBay. And if he really wanted to get inside, I’m sure there are an infinity of ways to bypass this lock by Googling the problem.

A few other observations:

1. Imagine doing this with other personal identity things you own. Would you want a 4-digit unlock key for your credit card every time you wanted to buy some groceries? I mean, theoretically the same burglary/identity theft issues still apply. How paranoid would you need to be?
2. You know what else is generally four digits long? Your pass key for your ATM card is usually four numbers. As is the answer to many identity-verifying questions used when you’re talking to credit card / banking / etc. companies on the phone (for example (obviously), “What are the last four digits of your social security number?”).Many people don’t have the mental capacity to hold on to more than one important 4-digit number in their life. So now, with your screen unlock, you’ve created the opportunity to telegraph something that may ACTUALLY be sensitive and valuable to an identity thief / maniacal S.O.

Let’s look at how much this is destroying your life.

Here’s an article  that says the average person checks their phone about 150 times a day. I’m sure this figure fluctuates wildly depending on whether or not you’re a psychotic teenage girl (though, given our understanding above, it’s likely that you are). 150 might sound high at first, but if you think about it, given ~19 waking hours (~7 hours of sleep), that’s checking your phone 7.9 times an hour. That’s entirely plausible. If not conservative.

We’ll say it takes, what, all of 2 seconds to pass through the unlock screen? Fine. That’s 5 minutes (300 seconds) you spend unlocking every day. Or 1.27 entire 24-hour days (109,500 seconds) every year that you’re exhausting just by nonsensically punching your 4-digit security code into your cell phone.

(…By comparison: I wrote this entire blog post and managed to only waste about 75 minutes.)