Ignore the daily total. Look at three numbers instead: how many times you picked the phone up, what time your first pickup was, and how much use happened after you meant to be asleep. Those three tell you what kind of problem you have. The total tells you almost nothing, and it is the one everybody screenshots.
Where the numbers are
On an iPhone: Settings, then Screen Time, then See All App and Website Activity. Switch to the weekly view. Pickups and first pickup are further down the same screen, under the daily usage chart.
On Android the feature is Digital Wellbeing, usually in Settings, though the exact path and the labels vary by manufacturer. Look for unlocks or screen unlocks rather than pickups, and for a notifications count on the same page.
Take the weekly view over the daily one. One bad Tuesday is not a pattern, and a week that contains a long train journey is not a verdict.
Why the total lies to you
Your total counts a video call with your mum, an hour of maps on a motorway, a podcast while you cook and forty minutes of scrolling at midnight as the same quantity of screen time. Two of those are the phone doing its job. One is the problem you came here about.
It also flatters people whose problem is frequency rather than duration. Ninety short pickups can total less than two long sessions while wrecking far more of your day, because what a pickup costs is not the ninety seconds, it is the thread you dropped to look.
The research on totals is unimpressed too. An analysis of three datasets covering 355,358 people found the association between digital technology use and adolescent wellbeing was ["negative but small, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in well-being"](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30944443/). And all four UK Chief Medical Officers, reviewing the whole field, wrote that ["This research does not present evidence of a causal relationship between screen-based activities and mental health problems"](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-cmo-commentary-on-screen-time-and-social-media-map-of-reviews), adding that ["it could be, for example, that CYP who already have mental health problems are more likely to spend more time on social media"](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-cmo-commentary-on-screen-time-and-social-media-map-of-reviews). They still recommend a precautionary approach, and so do we.
Which means: stop asking whether your number is bad. Ask what it is made of.
Number one: pickups
This is the habit number. It measures how often the phone interrupts whatever you were doing, which is the thing you can actually feel.
Read it alongside the total. Two patterns, two different problems.
**High pickups, low total.** Checking. The phone is a reflex rather than an activity. This responds to notification changes, badges off, and moving icons off page one, because the reflex is cue-driven and you can remove cues.
**Low pickups, high total.** Sessions. You go in and stay in. This responds to friction that changes what happens when you arrive: greyscale, no autoplay, using the browser version, and having something ready for the moment your evening opens up.
Most people have one of these much more than the other, and most advice is written for the opposite one, which is why it never seems to fit.
Number two: first pickup
What time did the phone first get unlocked today? Not what time you woke up. The gap between those two is the most honest measure of whether your day starts on your terms.
If the answer is "before I was properly awake, in bed, and then it was twenty minutes", that is not a discipline problem. It is the charger being within arm's reach. Move it to the hall and put a cheap alarm clock on the bedside table so the argument about your alarm never happens.
Number three: after bedtime
Add up what happens after the hour you claim to go to bed. This is the number with the strongest evidence attached, which is why it is worth pulling out separately.
A review of 20 studies covering 125,198 children found ["a strong and consistent association between bedtime media device use and inadequate sleep quantity (odds ratio [OR], 2.17; 95% CI, 1.42-3.32)"](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27802500/). And the finding that changes where you put your charger tonight: children who had access to a device at night without using it were still more likely to sleep badly, at an odds ratio of 1.79.
Two caveats stated plainly. Those studies were cross-sectional, so they show an association rather than which way the arrow points. And they were about children, average age around fourteen. Even so, this is the cheapest change available and it undoes itself the second you want it back.
What the phone cannot tell you
It records what you did. It cannot record what you wanted in the ten seconds before.
That is the half that decides what to change, and it takes one day to collect: every time you unlock, write the time, what you were doing just before, and what you wanted. Boredom, avoidance, waiting, loneliness, habit. Do not change anything while you measure, because improving your behaviour while recording it means you have measured nothing.
[Finding the four moments you actually reach](/guides/phone_screen/the-moments-you-reach-for-it) is the piece that turns that log into changes.
There is no good number
People want a threshold. There is not one, because there is no diagnosis and no agreed line, and any number you find online was invented by whoever needed a headline.
Better questions, and all four are answerable tonight. Is the phone taking sleep. Is it taking a specific thing you meant to do. Have you tried to cut down and not managed it. Do you feel worse in the ten minutes after a session than you did before it. Two yeses is reason enough to change something, at any total.
Measure, change one thing, measure again
The report is only useful as a before and after.
- Take this week's numbers and write down all three plus the total. A screenshot is fine.
- Change one thing, not five. The charger, or notifications, or greyscale.
- Leave it a week without looking.
- Compare, and expect a modest shift rather than a transformation.
That last expectation matters. In the field experiment that tested greyscale, screen time fell immediately and significantly, and the same authors reported ["no immediate causal effect of reducing usage on subjective well-being and academic performance"](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36577008/). Hours come back. A better mood is not part of the package, and people who expect it quit in week two.
If you want the four changes with the most evidence behind them, [start here](/guides/phone_screen/how-to-stop-picking-up-your-phone).
One thing to not do with this number
Do not screenshot the total and feel bad about it. That is a mood, not a plan, and it reliably produces a dramatic weekend rule that is gone by Wednesday.
The number is diagnostic. It tells you which kind of problem you have and where to aim. Whatever it says, the change that follows should be small, physical and made once, while you are calm.
Common questions
**What is a normal amount of screen time?** There is no established normal and no threshold that means anything clinically. Totals are also poor at distinguishing a work call from a midnight scroll. Judge it by what it costs you in sleep, work and people rather than by the number of hours.
**Is my screen time report accurate?** Roughly. It counts time with the screen on and the app in the foreground, so audio you listen to with the screen off may not count, and time spent looking at a page while thinking about something else counts fully. Use it for direction and change, not as a precise measure.
**Is pickups or hours the more important number?** Pickups tell you how habitual it is, hours tell you how much of your day it takes. They point at different fixes: pickups respond to removing cues, hours respond to friction inside the app. Most people are much more one than the other.
**My screen time went up this week. Have I failed?** Not necessarily, and one week is not a trend. Look at what it is made of before concluding anything, because a week with a long journey, a sick child or a house move will move the total without meaning anything about your habits.
Sources
- [The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use, Nature Human Behaviour 2019](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30944443/). Three datasets, 355,358 people, and the association explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in wellbeing.
- [UK Chief Medical Officers' commentary on screen-based activities and children and young people's mental health](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-cmo-commentary-on-screen-time-and-social-media-map-of-reviews). No evidence of a causal relationship, the possibility the direction runs the other way, and the precautionary approach.
- [Association Between Portable Screen-Based Media Device Access or Use and Sleep Outcomes, JAMA Pediatrics 2016](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27802500/). The 20 cross-sectional studies, 125,198 children, and the finding on access without use.
- [Digital Strategies for Screen Time Reduction: A Randomized Field Experiment, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 2023](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36577008/). Greyscale reducing measured screen time, and the null result on wellbeing and academic performance.
