Compare your daily screen time with the published average for your age. Work time is counted separately, never graded. AAP and US time-use data.
Work or school is added to your daily total but kept out of the comparison — the published averages describe leisure media use, and no authority recommends doing less of your job. Leave sleep blank to assume 8 hours.
Recreational screen time against the published averages
Daily media use by age, and the only two ages for which a health authority publishes an hour limit.
Average daily screen media use, by age band
| Age | Average per day | Published limit | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 2 years (reference only) | 1 h 3 min | None published | Common Sense Media, via AAP |
| Ages 2 to 4 | 2 h 8 min | 1 h | Common Sense Media, via AAP |
| Ages 5 to 8 | 3 h 38 min | None published | Common Sense Media, via AAP |
| Ages 8 to 12 (tweens) | 5 h 33 min | None published | Common Sense Media, via AAP |
| Ages 13 to 18 (teens) | 8 h 39 min | None published | Common Sense Media, via AAP |
| Adults, 15 and over | 3 h 13 min | None published | BLS American Time Use Survey |
This calculator compares your entries with published averages and guidelines; it is not a medical assessment and does not diagnose any condition. Screen time is one factor among many, and what you do on a screen matters as much as how long. Speak to a clinician about sleep, eye or mental health concerns.
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There is no official daily screen time limit for adults. No health authority publishes one, and the bodies that do publish numbers — the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization — write them for young children only. So instead of grading you against a threshold somebody invented, this calculator does the one thing the evidence supports: it compares your recreational screen time with the published average for your age, and it counts your work or school time separately, because nobody recommends you do less of that.
Enter time in five categories. Work or school is added to your daily total but kept out of the comparison, since the published averages describe leisure and personal media use, not a job. The remaining four — social media, entertainment, gaming and everything else — make up your recreational total, which is the figure measured against your age band's published average and against a guideline where an authority actually publishes one.
Screen Time Formula
Average 2 hours 8 minutes a day of media use. This is the one band with a published limit: AAP recommends 1 hour a day of high-quality programming for ages 2 to 5, and WHO caps sedentary screen time at 1 hour for ages 2 to 4.
Average 3 hours 38 minutes a day. Above age 5 the AAP stops naming an hour figure and asks instead for consistent limits and screen-free times, so there is no number here to pass or fail.
Average 5 hours 33 minutes a day of screen media, not counting schoolwork. This is the age where recreational use overtakes almost every other waking activity.
Average 8 hours 39 minutes a day. Eight hours of recreational screen time is below the teen average, not above it — which is usually the most surprising line on this page.
A calculator that grades your combined total tells a full-time office worker their unavoidable job is excessive. Work time belongs in the total, not in the verdict.
Four hours is a lot for a preschooler and well under the average for a teenager. The comparison is what makes your figure readable.
AAP sets an hour a day for ages 2 to 5 and, above that, asks for consistent limits without naming a number. Saying so is more useful than inventing one.
Two and a half hours a day is thirty-eight days a year. The projection turns a daily habit into a quantity you can actually feel.
For adults, no health authority publishes a daily maximum, so any number you see quoted as a limit is somebody's rule of thumb. The published guidance is for children: AAP recommends 1 hour a day of high-quality programming for ages 2 to 5, avoiding solo media use at 18 to 24 months, and no digital media before 18 months except video chat. Above age 5 it asks for consistent limits rather than a figure. This calculator therefore compares you with the average for your age instead of grading you against an invented threshold.
It depends entirely on what kind of time it is and how old you are. Seven hours that includes an eight-hour desk job is not comparable to seven hours of evening scrolling. For a teenager, 7 hours of recreational screen time is below the published average of 8 hours 39 minutes; for an adult it is roughly double the leisure screen time the American Time Use Survey records.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey found that in 2025 people aged 15 and over watched TV for an average of 2.6 hours a day and spent a further 37 minutes playing games or using a computer for leisure. That survey records a primary activity, so screen use alongside something else is not counted — treat it as a floor rather than a full total.
Teens aged 13 to 18 average 8 hours 39 minutes of media use a day, according to Common Sense Media data compiled by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Tweens aged 8 to 12 average 5 hours 33 minutes. Neither figure counts time spent on schoolwork.
It counts toward your daily total and your share of waking hours, and it appears in the breakdown — but it is deliberately excluded from the comparison. Every published average describes leisure or personal media use, so measuring a job against it would be comparing two different things. Practically: the lever you control is the recreational half.
For children under 18 months, avoid digital media other than video chat. From 18 to 24 months, choose high-quality programming and watch it together rather than leaving a child alone with it. For ages 2 to 5, limit use to about 1 hour a day of high-quality programming. From age 6 the AAP moves away from a single number toward consistent limits, a family media plan, and protecting sleep, exercise and meals.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, shift your eyes to look at an object at least 20 feet away, for at least 20 seconds. It also notes that eye strain does not injure the eye and does not cause permanent damage — it is uncomfortable rather than harmful, and blinking deliberately helps, because people blink less at a screen.