What is Apple Screen Time and how does it work?

This page was translated using AI and machine learning.

(Pocket-lint) – Apple’s Screen Time aims to address growing concerns about rising device use, smartphone addiction and social media impacting mental health. The idea is to help you regain control, or at least let you know how much time you spend on your devices and what you do on them.

Here’s everything you need to know about Apple Screen Time, how to use it and what features it offers.

What is Apple Screen Time?

Screen Time is a core part of iOS and iPadOS and as such it works with all apps without developers or individual apps needing to make any changes to benefit from it.

It’s located in the Settings app and monitors how you use your devices, showcasing everything from how long you’ve spent on certain app categories and specific apps, to how many times you’ve picked up your iPhone in a given day or even time.

The data collected can be viewed in handy graphs in the Screen Time menu and at the start of the week on a Monday morning you’ll receive a report via a notification so you can see exactly what you’ve been doing this week, how compared to the previous week and how much time you lost in certain applications.

Apple breaks down apps using App Store categories so you can see if you play a lot of games, or spend time on social media, or if you’re a utility user.

As the data is fetched from the App Store – and it’s all reviewed by a human – you shouldn’t find a game hiding in a professional category, for example, offering a good indication of how you’re using your devices.

Screen Time is based on your iCloud account, which means you’ll be able to see how you use apps across multiple devices by enabling the ‘Share Across Devices’ option in the Screen Time menu.

How to use Screen Time

To see your Screen Time and access any data collected by the feature, head to the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and tap the Screen Time menu.

From here you can set app limits, schedule downtime, set which apps you want to allow at all times, block inappropriate content and set limits based on your contacts. You can also choose to use a Screen Time passcode to allow more time when limits expire – good to use on a family iPad for example.

To see your Screen Time data, open the Screen Time menu in the Settings app and select ‘See All Activity’. You can then choose Week and Day views at the top of the screen, as well as swipe the graphs from left to right to see activity from previous weeks and days.

Tapping one of the apps in the ‘Most Used’ menu will give you more details and you can also see more data in the ‘Notifications’ menu and the ‘First Used After Pickup’ menu which you get if you scroll down to the bottom beyond the most used. . We go into more detail about specific Screen Time features and how to use them below.

What can you do with Screen Time data?

The idea of ​​Screen Time data is that by understanding how you interact with your phone or tablet, you can then take much greater control, either by taking drastic measures like deleting the app entirely, or by limiting your usage by setting Data Limits. application.

The problem, of course, is that you have to decide to make this change. You can choose to ignore Screen Time results or bypass them at any time.

How to turn off screen time

To turn off Apple Screen Time, go to the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and tap Screen Time. Scroll down the menu and you’ll see ‘Turn off screen time at the bottom.

When disabled, your Screen Time will no longer be reported and all limits, downtime settings, and content and privacy restrictions will be disabled.

What are app limits and how do you set them?

App Limits in Screen Time lets you set yourself daily or weekly time limits to limit your usage, whether it’s a specific app like Facebook or an entire category of apps like social media or games, for example.

To set an app limit, head to the Screen Time menu in the Settings app. Tap ‘App Limits’ under the daily average graph and select ‘Add Limit’. From here you can choose to select an entire category, or you can tap the category arrow to expand the menu and view individual apps. To choose a category or an individual application, check the box on the left and press “Next”.

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You will then have to choose the desired duration of the limit, for example 30 minutes per day. You can also have different limits for different days by tapping “Customize Days”. This lets you choose to limit WhatsApp to one hour per day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and two hours on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, for example.

How to Bypass Screen Time and App Limits?

When an app limit is about to expire, you’ll get a notification letting you know you only have five minutes left. When your time is up, the app icon will be slightly grayed out on your home screen, and if you open it, you’ll see a white screen with an hourglass and the words ‘Time Limit’. You can choose “OK” to exit the app and do something else with your time.

Or, you can select ‘Ignore Limit’, after which you’ll be given four choices of: ‘One more minute’, ‘Remind me in 15 minutes’, ‘Ignore Limit for Today’ or ‘Cancel’.

The Screen Time app limits are very similar to how Do Not Disturb While Driving works. You can choose to reject it, but that makes you think twice.

What is downtime and how do you block specific apps at specific times?

Another feature of Apple’s Screen Time is Downtime, like App Limits. Rather than putting a time limit on apps or categories of apps like App Limits does, Downtime lets you schedule a block of time where only the apps you choose will run.

This feature can be used by parents to control which apps are available to their children before bedtime, for example, but you can also use it to prevent you from using your work email after hours or social media during work.

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To access Downtime, open the Settings app and navigate to the Screen Time menu. Tap ‘Downtime’ below the daily averages chart. You’ll then need to enable downtime, select the days you want it, and select the schedule, such as 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.

Only apps you choose to allow and phone calls will be available when Downtime is enabled. It is possible to whitelist certain apps so that you can still use the phone or messaging features, for example. To do this, tap the ‘Always Allowed’ option in the Screen Time menu and tap the ‘+’ icon next to the apps you want to allow, even when Downtime is enabled.

How to see how many times you have recovered your device

Screen Time is also about showcasing the time you spend interacting with your device. Using a number of signals, Apple measures how many times you pick up your phone or iPad in a given hour. There’s an engagement level for it to register, but it’s all about tracking how many times you pick it up.

To see how many times you’ve recovered your device, head to the Screen Time menu in the Settings app. Tap “See All Activity” below the Daily Average graph. Scroll down past the ‘Most Used’ section and you’ll come to the Pickups section.

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From there, you’ll see a graph with a number of pickups for that day or week (depending on which tab is selected at the top), along with the time of the first pickup in Day view, or the day with the most pickups in the Week view.

To switch between Day and Week view, select Day or Week at the top of the Screen Time menu.

Screen Time Parental Controls

While parental controls go a long way in providing more granular controls, Apple doesn’t offer single-device multi-user support for the iPhone or iPad. Screen Time only works through the use of iCloud account on devices, so if you have a family iPad, the system will log all usage of the app, regardless of which user is using it.

However, you can control which apps your children use. Parents can access their child’s activity report from their own Apple devices to understand where their child is spending their time and they can manage and set app limits.

You can also use Downtime to schedule a period of time to limit when your child can use their Apple device, such as bedtime.

Screen Time settings are all managed remotely through the parent’s device, so your kids won’t be able to bypass features or turn them off.

Written by Stuart Miles and Britta O’Boyle.