How to check and manage screen time on an Android phone

Smartphone addiction is an issue in today’s world. Knowingly or unknowingly, you pick up your phone and mindlessly scroll through Instagram, check email, or read Slack messages. That’s why it’s important to know your screen time, the amount of time you spend looking at your phone in a day.

Do you think you only spend a few hours a day looking at your phone’s display? The reality is that your screen time is probably a lot longer than you expect. The constant search for new texts, Slack messages, and emails quickly adds up. If you’re worried about missing an important notification or message, a good smartwatch can help ease your anxiety and act as a bridge until you can completely unplug for a while.

How to Check Screen Time on Android

Checking your screen time is easy as long as your Android phone has the Digital Wellbeing feature.

1. Open the app drawer.
2. Tap the settings apartment
3. Choose Digital Wellbeing and Parental Controls.

The Digital Wellbeing chart appears on-screen, showing a breakdown of your app usage. For a more detailed breakdown of your app usage, tap the pie chart to access the Screen Time dashboard. From here, go through your screen time history to get more insight into your phone usage habits.

How to add a Screen Time widget to your home screen

You can add a Screen Time widget to your Android phone’s home screen if you frequently check your screen time. The widget is available on devices running Android 9 or higher.

1. Long press an empty area on your phone’s home screen.
2. Beat widgets.
3. Choose Digital Wellbeing widget.
4. The widget is available in three sizes and displays different amounts of information. Choose the size according to your preference.

How to add the Digital Wellbeing icon to your app drawer

You don’t always have to jump into the settings menu or use the widget to access Screen Time in Digital Wellbeing. The app can be viewed in the app drawer if you prefer to access it that way, although you’ll need to enable the appropriate option first.

1. Open the app drawer.
2. Tap the settings apartment
3. Choose Digital Wellbeing and Parental Controls.
4. Scroll down and enable Show icon in app list Possibility.

On Samsung phones, tap the three-dot overflow menu button in the upper-right corner of the Digital Wellbeing page and select settingsand then switch on View Digital Wellbeing on the Apps screen.

What is your Digital Wellbeing screen time showing?

The Digital Wellbeing dashboard shows an overview of your screen time, including the time you stare at your phone each day and the time you spend in different apps. This is a great way to gain insight into your phone usage habits, e.g. B. how long you use it to get work done and how long you spend on social media apps or games.

Digital Wellbeing also lists how many times your phone has been unlocked and notifications throughout the day. If the number is too high, follow these tips to better manage notifications on your Android phone.

Digital wellbeing’s screen time helps put your smartphone usage into perspective. Professionals who use their phones to check email, Slack messages, and more have an average screen time of around three to four hours. Anything beyond that should be the exception rather than the norm.

Using your phone for a long period of time can negatively impact battery life. So if the screen time dashboard shows that you’ve spent hours playing Temple Run 2, you’re to blame for the poor battery life.

Digital Wellbeing’s Screen Time feature is available for Android phones and tablets. If you gave your child an Android tablet to study with, use Screen Time to review how the device is being used.

Various digital wellbeing tools can help you find your work-life balance. To achieve this, you should set up Digital Wellbeing on your Android phone.

How to set up app timers to limit your screen time

You can reduce the use of specific apps by setting up app timers in Digital Wellbeing. Use this feature to indicate how long you should use an app each day. Once this quota is exhausted, Digital Wellbeing will make this app inaccessible for your wellbeing.

1. Open the app drawer.
2. Tap the settings apartment
3. Choose Digital Wellbeing and Parental Controls.
4. Tap the Digital Wellbeing pie chart.
5. Tap the hourglass icon next to the app name you want to set a usage limit for.
6. Enter the maximum time you want to use this app daily. The timer resets daily at midnight.

When an app times out, its icon will be grayed out. When you start, a message appears that the timer has expired and the app can only be used from tomorrow. It is possible to set up app timers for multiple apps.

The implementation of Digital Wellbeing’s screen time in Android is severely limited compared to iOS. On iPhones you can set different time limits for different days, which is not possible on Android. Likewise, you cannot request an additional five minutes of app usage time on Android when the daily quota is exhausted. App timers offer a great way to limit your child’s activity in non-educational apps.

How to set up focus mode to avoid distractions from other apps

Set up Focus mode if you’re frequently distracted by notifications from social media apps while checking email, Slack messages, or other activities. For example, pause notifications from Facebook, Instagram, and Gmail until after work. Set up a focus mode for such a use case.

1. Open the app drawer.
2. Tap the settings apartment
3. Choose Digital Wellbeing and Parental Controls
4. Scroll down and tap focus mode.
5. Select the distracting apps you want to block.
6. Beat Set a schedule.

7. Choose the time and days you want Focus mode to turn on automatically.
8. Beat Sentence confirm.

Focus mode turns on automatically during the set schedule and blocks notifications from selected apps.

If you’re addicted to your smartphone or social media apps, use the Digital Wellbeing tools on Android to limit your screen time. Use focus mode and app timer to better manage work-life balance.

However, digital wellbeing only helps to a limited extent. After that, set up Do Not Disturb mode on your Android phone to prevent unwanted notifications from disturbing you when you are sleeping or on vacation.