Step 1
Find a daily or seven-day average
Use the same reporting period for total time and social-media time. A seven-day average is usually more informative than one unusual day. Device menus and category labels can change by operating-system version and manufacturer.
iPhone or iPad
- Open Settings → Screen Time.
- If reporting is off, turn on App & Website Activity.
- Select See All App & Website Activity → Devices.
- Choose one device, then select Day or Week.
If Share Across Devices is on, Apple may combine supported Apple devices. Select one device for a phone-only entry; use a combined report only when you intend to estimate across devices.
Apple Screen Time instructionsAndroid phone
- Open Settings.
- Select Digital Wellbeing & parental controls.
- Tap the chart to inspect screen time by app.
- Use a daily value or calculate the average of the available days.
Digital Wellbeing is available on some Android phones, and the route varies by manufacturer. The report normally describes that phone rather than all devices.
Google Digital Wellbeing instructionsApple and Android report device activity. The AIR contextual reference is a GWI survey estimate of daily internet and social-media use across devices. Device categories may omit, combine or misclassify activity, and simultaneous use can further complicate time estimates.
Step 2
Enter your own values
Nothing entered below is sent to the AIR programme. The calculation can still be used when the national reference is unavailable or does not fit.
Your entered values
Private descriptive summary
One-device report
- Total entered time
- — per day
- Social-media time
- — per day
- Share of entered time
- — social media
Calculation pending.
Contextual reference
2024 reference
| Measure | Your entry | Selected reference | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total internet time | — | — | — |
| Social-media time | — | — | — |
Reference definition and provenance
- Population
- Internet users aged 16–64
- Year
- 2024
- Unit
- Minutes per day
- Release
- Social Context v1.5
It is not a healthy-use threshold, percentile, mental-health screen, loneliness measure, radicalisation assessment or AIR level. National estimates do not reveal content, purpose, platform design, simultaneous use, sleep displacement or individual circumstances.
Step 3
Ask better questions than “How many hours?”
Time is one descriptive measure. It does not explain what someone encountered online, why they used it, whether the experience helped or harmed them, or what other activity it displaced.
- PurposeHow much use was required for work, study, care or practical tasks, and how much was chosen leisure?
- Content and designWhat content, communities, recommendations, notifications or platform features shaped the experience?
- ConnectionDid the activity support reciprocal contact, passive browsing, conflict, belonging, comparison or isolation?
- DisplacementDid the time replace intended sleep, physical activity, study, work or in-person contact?
- ControlDid use feel deliberate, mixed or difficult to stop? Has that experience changed over time?
- VariationWould a weekday, weekend, stressful period or holiday produce a different picture?
If digital use is causing distress or interfering with daily life, seek advice from an appropriate qualified health professional or a trusted local service. This AIR page does not provide clinical guidance or emergency support.
Evidence and debate
Important concern, mixed and heterogeneous evidence
Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation presents an influential argument that the rapid shift from a play-based to a phone-based childhood contributed to worsening adolescent mental health. It is a prominent explanatory thesis, not by itself an independent scientific consensus.
Effects vary
Age, developmental stage, content, platform features, vulnerabilities, purpose and social context can change both the direction and magnitude of an association.
Benefits and harms coexist
Digital environments can support connection, information and identity exploration while also enabling harmful content, comparison, harassment, sleep disruption or compulsive patterns for some users.
Association is not causation
Reverse causation, self-selection, measurement error, unmeasured confounding and changing platforms make simple time–outcome relationships difficult to interpret.
Loneliness is distinct
Loneliness is subjective; social isolation concerns objective connection. Neither is interchangeable with screen time, and the current AIR release has no harmonised Five Eyes loneliness series.
Much prominent evidence concerns children and adolescents. Those findings should not be generalised automatically to adults, and a national adult reference cannot diagnose an adolescent or any individual.
Sources and status
Verify the evidence yourself
- Haidt, Jonathan (2024). The Anxious Generation. Author’s evidence resource. Influential scholarly synthesis and argument; not treated here as a consensus report.
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2024). Social Media and Adolescent Health. Consensus study report.
- American Psychological Association (2023). Health advisory on social media use in adolescence.
- US Surgeon General (2023). Social Media and Youth Mental Health. Advisory describing possible benefits, concerns and evidence gaps.
- World Health Organization (2025). From loneliness to social connection. Report of the WHO Commission on Social Connection.
- Valkenburg, Meier and Beyens (2022). Social media use and its impact on adolescent mental health: an umbrella review of the evidence.
The AIR contextual comparison uses the released indicators daily_internet_time_minutes_gwi_audited and daily_social_media_time_minutes_gwi_audited. Both are a balanced 2019–2024 Five Eyes panel for internet users aged 16–64. This page uses only the 2024 same-report-year values and preserves the source records delivered with Social Context v1.5.