How do I check my screen time on Android?
Open Settings and tap Digital Wellbeing & parental controls. The chart at the top shows today's total screen time, and tapping it shows time per app, how many times you unlocked the phone and how many notifications you got. Some phone makers label the menu slightly differently, so the fastest route is to search Settings for "Digital Wellbeing". It reports minutes, not how many videos you scrolled on Reels, Shorts or TikTok.
The short answer
Open Settings and go to Digital Wellbeing & parental controls. Today’s screen time is on the chart at the top. If you can’t find the menu, search Settings for “Digital Wellbeing”.
Where is Digital Wellbeing?
On most Android phones, Samsung included, it sits directly inside Settings:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap Digital Wellbeing & parental controls.
- Tap the chart at the top for the detail view.
If you check it often, Digital Wellbeing has a Show icon in the app list option. Turn it on and it gets its own icon next to your other apps.
The exact label varies a little by manufacturer and Android version. The search box works on every phone.
What does it show you?
- Screen time: total time on the phone today.
- Time per app: which apps took the most time, in order.
- Unlocks: how many times you picked the phone up and unlocked it.
- Notifications: how many arrived, and from which apps.
Tap any app in the list to see its details. You can also step back through previous days to compare.
Don’t the apps have their own timers?
They do. Instagram has Time spent, YouTube has Time watched, and TikTok has Screen time. Their numbers won’t always match Digital Wellbeing exactly, because each one measures in its own way.
What do minutes leave out?
Digital Wellbeing will tell you “Instagram: 52 minutes”. It won’t tell you what happened inside those 52 minutes:
| Digital Wellbeing tells you | Digital Wellbeing doesn’t tell you |
|---|---|
| Minutes spent in Instagram | How much of that was Reels and how much was messages |
| Minutes spent in YouTube | Whether you watched one long video or swiped through Shorts |
| Total screen time | How many short videos you scrolled |
That gap matters. If each video were watched for 24 seconds, 40 minutes on Shorts is roughly 100 videos. The same 40 minutes could also be a single long video, and Digital Wellbeing reports both the same way. We wrote about why time and count tell different stories separately.
Should you set an app timer?
Digital Wellbeing also has App timers. You give an app a daily allowance, and when it runs out the app closes and its icon greys out. Timers reset at midnight.
They can help, but know two things. A timer closes the whole app, so trying to cut down on Reels also cuts you off from your Instagram messages. And deleting the timer takes a few taps. We covered why that makes blockers fade in another post.
Bedtime mode and Focus mode live in the same menu. Bedtime mode can turn the screen grayscale at night, and Focus mode pauses chosen apps while it’s on.
How do you see the video count?
Android’s own tools don’t have it. Silverback adds it: it counts the videos you scroll on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and TikTok and shows the number on top of the app you’re in. It runs alongside Digital Wellbeing, so there’s nothing to switch off. Digital Wellbeing tells you the minutes. Silverback tells you how many videos.