“Screen time” is one of my favourite features of iOS 12 . In this current mobile age , we are addicted to our smartphones, unaware of the countless hours we spend scrolling social media apps . 

The first step to curing any disease is being aware that we are affected by it. Then we can work towards analysis of the situation and how to cure it . And “Screen time” does exactly that . A daily and weekly brief of time spent on phone . Broken down into app-category wise , app wise , total hours spent , number of hours phone picked up, number of notifications received. 

Above : a screen showing my total screen time for the week colour, coded by categories. 

Above: number of times I pick up my phone everyday, and number of notifications I receive (further broken down app-wise)

Once you are aware of situation , you can set “App limits”. These are limits of how much time you can spend in the app . They can be set category wise or as groups of apps (second method is difficult to replicate).

Above: I have set a time limit of 1 hour 1 min for “Social Networking” category of apps (like Facebook and Twitter). 

Above: You can also specify daywise rules (if you want to spend extra time on Facebook on weekends)

Once you cross this limit , you can no longer get into those apps and are greeted with a lock screen .

You can simply by pass this by press of a button “Ignore limit” , but you can also lock it with passcodes ( if you are setting these limits for your kids ) . These limits can be tracked across multiple iOS devices as total of screen time on all devices . And if your kid is sneaky Type and tries to work around this situation by logging into twitter through safari , rest assured , Apple has somehow automatically put a lock on websites too ( I wish this is carried forward to macOS )

There are many more features and I can get down into all of them if you are interested . 

All of these features are coming to your iPhones with iOS 12 this September ( iPhone 5S and above)