The first time I saw my number, I closed the screen. It was over five hours. A few days later I opened it again, looked at the per-app split and the pickup count, and only then did the number start meaning anything.
On iPhone, open Settings, then Screen Time, and view the app and website activity. On Android, open Settings, then Digital Wellbeing, and the first screen is the Dashboard. Both show daily and weekly totals, per-app time, pickups, and notifications received. On a first look, skip the total and read the per-app time and pickups instead: the total only shocks, while the per-app number points at what to fix.
Both live inside the Settings app. iPhone shows today's time at the top of the Screen Time menu, with the full breakdown behind it. On Android, the first screen of Digital Wellbeing & parental controls is the Dashboard. I put off my first look for weeks, and finally opened it the morning after a night I woke to find my screen still on. That day's number was the biggest one.
| What you want | iPhone | Android |
|---|---|---|
| Daily and weekly totals | Settings, Screen Time, the activity screen. Toggle daily and weekly at the top | Settings, Digital Wellbeing, Dashboard. Weekly bars under the circle |
| Per-app time | Most Used, lower on the same screen | The app list under the Dashboard. Tap an app for its hourly spread |
| Pickups | Pickups on the same screen, including first-used-after-pickup apps | Switch the Dashboard's top menu to times opened |
| Notifications received | The notifications section, counted per app | Switch the Dashboard's top menu to notifications |
| Versus last week | The weekly view shows the change against last week | Swipe the weekly bars sideways to earlier weeks |
The weekly view beats the daily one. A day carries accidents. A week carries the trend. I read weekly.
The total runs big, and mixed into it are the maps you walked with, the music you played, the photos of your kid. Read only the total and you get self-blame with no target. Split by app, it changes: my five hours held two hours of short-form, one of messengers, and a scatter of the rest. The fixable part was one number, not five.
The number is a direction, not a score. Which app, which hours, time or count: know those three and the next move names itself.
I disliked myself over that five for a while, and the disliking reduced nothing. It lowered my mood, and the low mood watched more short-form. When the spiral starts, walk through these.
There were days the number soured my mood into extra scrolling. Those still count as days I tried to put the phone down. The screen got opened.
Screen time shows where to aim, but looking at a number never shrank one. Sumbi doesn't count the time behind you: it sets the time ahead without the phone. Start a 30-minute dive and the screen can go dark, your remaining breath shrinking only while another app opens. If short-form ran two hours, trade the first 30 minutes of it for a dive.
Take one dive this evening →Daily checking hands your mood to the number. Pick a weekday, Monday coffee for me, open only last week's weekly view, read the top three apps, close. Two minutes, and up or down, the week's direction is set.
Note the top app's weekly number somewhere, paper or a memo, and next week compare only that. Don't look at the rest. When one drops, the others tend to follow, and if they don't, one still dropped.
A hundred-plus pickups against two total hours is a minute at a time, a hundred times. Time limits can't catch that. The fix is the entrance: pull the first-opened app off the home screen, thin out the notifications.
The five is in the threes now. The two-hour drop took months, with weeks it climbed back. To the me who closed that first screen: closing it is fine. Just open it again in a few days.
Menu names and locations can vary a little by device model and software version. This article is general information, not medical advice.
Sumbi