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Smartphones are powerful and useful tools but can also be addictive, leading to excessive usage that affects productivity and mental health. This is especially concerning for kids, prompting parents to seek effective controls on their children’s iPad and iPhone usage or for specific apps. Luckily, iOS 12 boasts the Screen Time feature, a suite of tools for monitoring and limiting device usage per app. This article provides insights on how to use Screen Time’s powerful features.
Monitor App Usage
Screen Time has two main features for monitoring and limiting device usage. Weekly reports are generated highlighting device usage within the last seven days. Users can view a daily average usage time, including whether it’s higher or lower than the previous week, among other details. Screen Time divides each day usage into a color-coded bar graph for social media, entertainment, and other categories, indicating your most-used apps. Additionally, the ‘Insights’ section provides useful observations. There’s more detailed data on graphs of daily usage, longest session, device usage after bedtime, and what causes the most pickups and notifications. This information helps analyze unhealthy device usage habits and specific apps to limit. One can use this data for improvement.
Users can view the app usage report anytime by opening the Settings app and tapping Screen Time. They will see how long their device has been operating, how time was spent (in broad categories like social media, entertainment, etc.), and view detailed reports. Users can choose to view the collected files of all their devices or for a particular device. Screen Time offers a one to seven-day report.
Limit Personal App Usage
Users can set a limit for using a particular app by using Screen Time. An orange hourglass icon appears next to an app, indicating it has usage limits. The user can set a limit for each app, which is applied only on specific days and to hours and minutes. Note that if an iCloud account is signed in with other devices, the limits will apply to those devices as well. Users receive a notification when there are only five minutes left of the daily usage limit.
Limit Your Children’s App Usage
For parents using Family Sharing, Screen Time sends a weekly summary of their children’s activities and an overview of the kids’ actions. Parents can create “allowances” for their kids’ app usage, a more advanced version of iOS parental control. Downtime can also be scheduled when the child should not be near the screen. Users can set start and end times and block accessibility to the device during bedtime. Moreover, Screen Time offers specific app deadlines, different app category limits, and app approval options.
To sum up, Screen Time provides a powerful suite of features to efficiently monitor and limit device usage. Users can monitor device usage and analyze unhealthy device usage habits to set specific limits for particular apps or content. Parents can use advanced Screen Time features to control their kids’ app usage, schedules, and approvals.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Can Screen Time restrictions be overridden?
Yes, users receive a notification when there are only five minutes left of the daily usage limit, and they can request more time. Additionally, users have the opportunity to accept or reject further time limits.
What age groups benefit the most from the Screen Time feature?
Screen Time is helpful for all age groups who are struggling to limit their device usage for specific apps or content. Parents will find Screen Time’s advanced features more beneficial for kids, allowing them to closely monitor and limit the children’s device usage according to specific schedules, apps, and approvals.