Teenagers hate being restricted. Whether that’s the food they eat, the clothes they wear, or how they manage their time on their phones. They want freedom. The Apple Screen Time feature is a tool that can help control the amount of time a user spends on their Apple device. One would think that most teens wouldn’t even bother to use Screen Time when given the chance. But, EHS students prove otherwise.

Sophomore Adriana Benintendi uses Screen Time in hopes of it helping her control the amount of time she spends on her phone. Benintendi uses the feature without anyone telling her to do so, and in a way, it makes her feel responsible.

“I just wanted to track how much I go on my phone and what I should do about it if the time was too high. Also, I just like it on my phone because then if it’s like seven hours or more, I’m like ‘oh shoot, I should get off my phone and be more present with my family,’” said Benintendi. Screen Time can bring awareness to users about the amount of time they spend on their phones. For some, that awareness can lead to feeling good about themselves, or even the opposite. Even if the feature cannot validate their sense of self-control, it can definitely help them obtain more self-control when it comes to phone use

“Sometimes, I get kind of insecure because I’ll talk to my friends about it, and they’ll be like ‘mine increased like two percent’ and mine would have increased like ten percent,” Benintendi joked. She isn’t the only one who feels insecure about her screen time increasing.

“I get disappointed in myself when my screen time gets really high. In order to fix that, I try to get my homework done first and then go on my phone. So when my screen time is really high, I can at least know that I did my homework,” said junior Abbie Straughn.

ScreenTime gives a weekly report on the amount of time the user spends on their phone that week. It reports the weekly average of the time the user spends on their phone. It also provides information about the daily average screen time. For most students, the daily average varies between four to seven hours. 

“I think I spend five hours each day on my phone. I spend most of my time on either TikTok, Instagram or Spotify,” said Benintendi. Most teens, not surprisingly, spend a lot of their time on social media. But for others, like Straughn, their daily average is above ten hours a day.

“My daily average is probably like fourteen hours. But that’s because I like to watch Netflix before I go to bed, and I usually spend, like, eight hours a night on Netflix. That’s why my screen time is so high compared to others,” said Straughn.  

For some high school students, parents have taken the opportunity to guide their children in the right direction when it comes to how they utilize their screen time. For freshman Maddox Haltom, his parents have turned on Screen Time on his phone.

“My parents limited me to three hours a day during the summer. I didn’t like it, and it sucked having only three hours a day, especially during the summer. I couldn’t really talk with my friends or do anything on my phone,” said Haltom. Because he hated the limit that he had on his phone, Haltom found out the password for Screen Time and turned it off.

“I’m not considering getting Screen Time again because I like to be able to have the freedom to do what I want to do without any restrictions. In a way, it kind of makes me feel responsible,” said Haltom.

Whether students turn Screen Time on for themselves or their parents do it for them, the ultimate purpose of the Apple feature is supposed to inform users about their screen time. For most students, they just have Screen Time turned on, but have no restrictions implemented. After all, it’s always good to know how much time people spend on their phones since phones drive people’s everyday lifestyles.