With the help of screen time it is possible to gain insight into your iPhone and iPad usage. This means you can check how often you use your iPhone, iPad or Mac, how many notifications you have received, how long you have been using an app, etc.
It’s the perfect way to find out if you have a smartphone addiction. If desired, you can then impose app limits, which means that you can no longer use apps after frequent use. This function was mainly created to limit children and teenagers, but you can also be strict with yourself.
Tackling smartphone addiction with app limits
If you notice that you use your iPhone or iPad frequently, you have the option to set app limits. This ensures that you can only use an app or certain category for a certain time per day. The easiest way to explain this is with an example:
Suppose you want to limit social media apps to 1 hour per day, then you can set this limit for all social network apps. This means that after a total of one hour of use, you are no longer allowed to use these apps and they will be temporarily blocked. Of course you can still use the app, but that is not the intention of the function.
Set global app limits on an iPhone or iPad
You can set app limits on your own iDevice or on your children’s iPhone, iPad or Mac. It is advisable to set an access code for Screen Time, which you can do via (System) Settings â–¸ Screen Time â–¸ Lock Screen Time settings. This means that the user cannot provide additional time when the limit has been reached. You can set app limits via the steps below.
- Navigate to ‘Screen Time’ in (System) Settings
- Tap or click ‘App Limits’
- Choose ‘Add limit’
- Select one or more categories
- Tap or click Add and choose a specific time
Open the category by tapping the v symbol to exclude apps from app limits. This way you can ensure that you can still use the Messages app, for example.
Click or tap ‘Adjust days’ to adjust the limit per day, so you can set more time on weekends, for example. Return to save the limit. Good to know, the counter is reset to zero at midnight.
Once the limits are set, this means that you can only use the apps for this total time. When the time is almost up you will receive a notification and when the time is up you will notice that the app is blocked. An hourglass will appear in front of the name of the app and when you open it you will see the app limit screen. If you don’t have a Screen Time passcode set, you can ignore the limit for 15 minutes or all day by tapping Ignore Limit at the bottom.
Websites are also blocked with limits
If you thought you could outsmart the app limits by, for example, opening Facebook in Safari, you will be disappointed. The websites linked to the apps are also blocked.
Set app limit per app or website
Would you rather set a limit per app instead of per category? Which can. To do this, go to (system) Settings â–¸ Screen Time â–¸ Open the overview â–¸ Search for the app or website in the list â–¸ Tap or click on the item in the list â–¸ choose ‘Add limit’.
You can also do this via (system) Settings â–¸ Screen time â–¸ App limits â–¸ Add limit â–¸ open a category â–¸ check the desired app or website.
Adjust or remove app limits
Open (system) Settings â–¸ Screen Time â–¸ App Limits â–¸ open the limit. You can then adjust the time by tapping the button of the same name. You can edit the category via the ‘Edit apps’ button. Finally, you can remove the restriction via the ‘Remove limit’ option.