Screen Time Calculator

Enter roughly how many hours a day you spend on social media, video, games, work or school screens and everything else, and this calculator adds them up and puts the total in perspective: hours a week, full days a year, the share of your waking hours, and how many years of round-the-clock time it adds up to over the next decade. It also shows the screen-time guidance from the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics for young children.

Your phone's built-in screen time report (Screen Time on iPhone, Digital Wellbeing on Android) gives accurate figures to enter here.

Days per year = hours per day × 365.25 ÷ 24

Share of waking time = hours per day ÷ (24 − hours of sleep)

The projection assumes your current daily average stays the same and expresses the total as years of continuous time, which makes small daily habits easier to picture. Work or school time is counted in the total but shown separately in the leisure figure, since most people have less control over it. Estimates are only as good as the numbers you enter, and studies comparing guesses with phone logs find that people often misjudge their use by a wide margin, so checking your device report first gives a more honest picture.

5.5 hours a day of leisure screens is 84 full days a year, about 34% of a 16-hour waking day, and 2.3 years over the next decade.

Cutting social media by one hour a day brings the yearly total down to 68 days, giving back more than two weeks a year.

• Under 2: the WHO advises no sedentary screen time; the AAP says video chatting with family is fine.
• Ages 2 to 4 or 5: no more than 1 hour a day of high-quality programs, ideally watched together with a caregiver.
• School-age children and teens: the AAP recommends a family media plan with consistent limits, screen-free meals and bedrooms, and enough time for sleep, exercise and homework.

Long stretches of close screen work can cause digital eye strain: tired, dry or blurry eyes and headaches. The American Academy of Ophthalmology suggests the 20-20-20 rule, looking at something about 20 feet away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes, along with blinking deliberately and keeping the screen about an arm's length away and slightly below eye level. For children, time outdoors is linked to a lower risk of developing nearsightedness, one more reason to balance screen hours with outdoor play. Neck and back strain from looking down at phones can be reduced by raising the device toward eye level.

Quality and timing matter as well as hours. Screens in the hour before bed are linked to later sleep, partly through stimulating content and partly through light exposure. Long unbroken sitting is linked to health risks whatever you are looking at, so getting up every 30 to 60 minutes helps. Practical steps include turning off non-essential notifications, keeping phones out of the bedroom, setting app time limits, and replacing one habitual scrolling session a day with something you value more, such as a walk, reading or time with friends.