The screen time you shouldn’t feel bad about

Doomscrolling at 2 a.m. or watching four straight hours of TikTok is different from filling out a crossword puzzle or using Google Maps to navigate a new city. Calling your mom or exchanging a few texts with your best friend is less concerning than time spent on social media, says Andrew Roth, founder of dcdx, a research firm focused on Gen Z.

“It’s not one that you’re getting sucked into," he says.

When you pick up your phone to text someone, you’re probably only using the device for a minute, according to dcdx data. But each “quick" TikTok check is really about 13 minutes, he says. Add that up over the day, and you end up with hours of social-media screen time.

Gen Z users, on average, spend seven hours a day on their phones, according to a 2023 report from dcdx.

Excessive screen time has come under scrutiny, with venues and schools locking up gadgets and psychologists linking prolonged social-media use with mental-health issues. But understanding what actually counts toward your screen-time total can help you make smarter adjustments where necessary. It can turn your phone into a helper and make you a better partner and parent.

Apple’s Screen Time tool can help. It tracks total device usage across iPhones, iPads and Macs. It also breaks that time into categories or by app to help us figure out what actually accounts for our screen time.

How Screen Time works

Screen Time measures how long your iPhone, iPad or Mac screen is on. The tool doesn’t factor in time you spend using your device with the screen off, such as listening to music or talking on the phone.

Screen Time has flaws, such as bugs that allow children to bypass web and time restrictions. Still, those looking to find healthy ways to cut back can start by reviewing the usage tally in iPhone settings.

Turn it on. You can check your daily average screen time for your iPhone or iPad by opening Settings, then Screen Time. Turn on the tool for the first time by tapping App & Website Activity.

On a Mac, click the Apple icon in the top left of the screen, System Settings, then Screen Time in the sidebar. Click App & Website Activity, then Turn On App & Website Activity to start tracking.

Be warned: Setting up Screen Time for your work Mac could confirm that, yes, you spend virtually your entire workday staring at a screen.

Share data across devices. To get a complete picture of your usage across devices signed into iCloud, scroll down on the Screen Time page and make sure Share Across Devices is toggled on. Select See All App & Website Activity, then Devices, then choose to view screen time for one device at a time, or all of them at once.

Compare usage over time. The App & Website Activity page shows your latest stats, and it refreshes by the minute. You can view stats up to four weeks in the past.

View by different app categories. Screen Time categorizes each app and website into one of 13 categories, such as Social and Entertainment. You can see your most-used categories at the top of your screen. Scroll and press Show Categories to see a breakdown of the rest.

These categories give you a better sense of what you’re actually doing on your device. You can see how much time you spent using Productivity & Finance apps versus Entertainment apps, for example.

Monitor your web browsing. Screen Time breaks down your stats by each app in the Most Used section, including which websites you visit in Safari.

What counts (and what doesn’t)

The time you spent on your calculator at dinner struggling to split a check? It counts. That time you spent two hours watching TikTok videos before bed? It counts. Even the time you spent eyeballing the Screen Time app in Settings counts. If your screen is awake, the counter’s a-ticking. If your screen is off, the counter stops.

Talking to a friend on a FaceTime call with the screen off doesn’t count, but when you turn on video, it does. Listening to a song on Spotify with the screen off doesn’t count. Listening to the song with the screen on does.

If you add up the time you spent using each app and website listed under the Most Used section, however, the total doesn’t always match the big number at the top. Some of your total time gets categorized, while some isn’t labeled.

Say you’re watching YouTube picture-in-picture as you shop online for an hour. When you look at the app breakdown, your YouTube time and your web-browser time will each go up by an hour and get assigned to the proper categories—in this case, Entertainment and Shopping & Food. Your daily total only goes up by one hour because you were performing both tasks at the same time.

If you hit pause on the YouTube video and hide the window off to the side instead of closing the app, it still counts as Entertainment screen time. Because of that, it might seem like you spent more time watching video than you actually did.

Meanwhile, some activities—such as looking at your widgets—still count toward your daily Screen Time total but aren’t labeled with any category.

So yes, you probably have been spending that much time on your iPhone. But remember: It isn’t all bad.

Write to Cordilia James at cordilia.james@wsj.com