Screen Time - how is it working for you? (poll)

Now that iOS 12 has been out for a while, how are people actually using screen time? Are you using limits for sites or apps? Do you stick to them?

  • Setting limits and usually sticking to them
  • Setting limits and regularly bypassing them
  • Observing only (no limits set)
  • Don’t use it (on iOS 12)
  • Haven’t upgraded yet

0 voters

:white_check_mark: Doesn’t really reflect accurate usage, so I’ve abandoned it.

3 Likes

As long as it counts maps and music it’s not really useful to me. Well, it is useful to see how much time I spend on Facebook and here. And disturbing.

wow i’m pretty surprised at the results (thus far)
before screentime i was using Moment to track daily time spent on phone & and i like its reminders (customizable) that i set every hour letting me know how much time i’ve spent on phone (e.g 1/5 hours left something like that)…also used freedom, forest, sleeptown as other apps to stay off /phone and apart of my #quantifiedlife style i like to review phone behavior data

my experience with screentime - throwing me off a little bc now my moment screentime tracking is off-- like i can deal if it was +/- 15 mins or so but some days screentime will say 5hrs on phone and momement will be half that - so I tend to trust screentime as I’m assuming apple got the right hooks installed to know what i’m really doing on the phone

with that being said I really like screentime and look forward to increasing knowledge on my phone behavior and more granular controls (e.g whatsaspp i only use for course group chats no texting i wish i could hide those notifications from the round up)… i love how it fades out the background and apps once my night cap time has been reached.

I think anyone who is trying to manage their screen behavior would benefit from the app controls i even like once you reach the limit for safari each time you visit a new site presents a reminder that you over time for webbrowsing

typing this post im going to reach out the moment developer and see why theirs a gap in the time tracking reporting- i’ll let you know what they say in case anyone else might be or interesting in moment as I only use quarter of the features I know it has ability for coaching you to be off your phone and other stuff https://inthemoment.io/

It is totally inacccurate for me so I no longer use it.

2 Likes

FAQ to the rescue–im glad i looked this up

Why is there a difference between what Moment and Apple’s Screen Time are reporting for my phone usage?

Moment and Apple’s Screen Time track your phone usage in a slightly different way. Apple counts your raw screen time. If your screen is on, Apple is counting that. Moment sometimes ignores the time when your screen is on.

For example, if you’re in another room and you get a notification, your screen will light up for 15 seconds. That 15 seconds counts in Apple’s Screen Time, but doesn’t count in Moment. The average person gets 150 notifications per day, so that adds up to a lot of screen time, even if you weren’t actively looking at your phone.

Also, Moment lets you exclude some apps from counting in your total screen time. The most common example is navigation apps (Maps, Google Maps, Waze, etc). By default, Moment doesn’t count screen time while your phone is charging, so your 2-hour drive using Maps doesn’t count for an entire 2 hours worth of screen time. Your eyes were hopefully on the road, not your screen.

Because of those reasons, Moment will usually be a bit lower than Apple’s Screen Time

1 Like

iPone and iPad give different numbers for the combined set of devices, so I don’t trust the numbers…

Useless for me. Because:

  • I don’t use my phone for Facebook, Twitter or similar time wasters.
  • I use my phone for navigation and listening to music, so many hours of “usage” are not really “using” the phone. Navigation=just glancing at the screen once in a while but counted as full usage. So, many hours of usage…weren’t.
  • You can’t remove apps from the statistics (like navigation)

Is that a statistical number? I’m so glad I’m not the average person.

Who cares about trusting the numbers? What I love about Screentime is that if I say “Only 15 minutes of Facebook on this device” then it tells me when 15 minutes has gone by, at which point I can exercise some self-control and get the F off of Facebook. Thank you, Apple, for helping me better manage my time without my having to set timers constantly.

Screen Time was an eyeopener for me when it first rolled out. I have to admit, I didn’t know how much time I was spending during the day “just checking in” on certain apps and social networks. I’ve been a big Cal Newport fan for a long time and have been mindful about how I apply my attention, but getting actual device data and overall usage numbers has been instrumental to changes in how I used my tech over the last few months. Now my usage is much more structured, on a per device basis, than it ever has bee in the past.

Looked at it once. Not for me. I don’t need a machine teaching me to avoid Facebook. Never used Facebook, and never will.

… why was it telling you to avoid an app you weren’t using? Maybe I’m confused here.

It gives you stats on every app and website (I think) you use, broadly categorized, as well as notification and phone pickup statistics. Unless you set specific limits there’s actually nothing in it telling you to use something less (though that’s a natural reaction, obviously.)

1 Like

One of my frustrations is that it’s iOS only - I can spend a half hour on MPU on my Mac and it won’t count against the set limit.

This is definitely a feature that’s begging to be made cross platform.

I use two Apple devices for my work, so monitoring screen time for me is irrelevant. My devices are tools of my trade, not toys or entertainment. :pencil2::pencil2:

Even if you only use Apple devices for work, I think there are still useful things that could be learned about how long you spend using which apps from Screen Time, but that may be because lately I’ve been listening to episodes from the Cortex back catalog where they talk a lot about the benefits of time tracking.

1 Like

Kinda similar to others. Right now my goal is to bring my total phone usage down. Even if it’s not entirely accurate the principal of using my phone less still exists. I use the App Limits for limiting my usage of social media (mainly Reddit), Safari, and Netflix. The category breakdown is terrible as I can’t rearrange what apps are in what category. I’ve used RescueTime and Freedom in the past on my Mac but would like it to be comparable on my Mac as well. I’d also wonder what improvements they would make in further releases to make it more accurate.

Hey OogieM, what is inaccurate?