It can be all too easy to spend too much time on your phone, cycling through social media posts, news updates, video clips, messaging apps and then back round again. Before you know it, half an hour or more has gone by, and you’ve accomplished very little.
If you’re looking to get a better balance between the time you spend staring at your phone screen and the time you spend doing everything else, Android has a tool that can help. It’s called Digital Wellbeing, and like Screen Time for the iPhone, it can tell you about your phone use and help you set up limits on it.
Digital Wellbeing is enabled by default, so the first time you open it, you should find that it’s already keeping tabs on what you get up to on your phone. It’s available across Android devices from all manufacturers, so you should be able to get at it whether you’re using a Google Pixel, a Samsung Galaxy, or any other Android phone.
To find Digital Wellbeing, open Settings and scroll down to Digital Wellbeing and parental controls. If you have your kids set up through Google Family Link, you can use Digital Wellbeing to put limits on what your children can do on their devices, but here, we’ll focus on how to use it for yourself.