Safety & Design
Screen time
Time spent on phones, tablets, computers, and TVs. For kids and teens, quality and type of use matter as much as total minutes.
- Parents
- Educators and school leaders
What parents should know
Screen time is how long someone spends on a phone, tablet, computer, or TV. The number of minutes is only half the story. A video call with a grandparent and an endless autoplay feed can take the same hour and leave a child in different shape. The American Academy of Pediatrics points families at a media plan instead of one magic number for every age.
On this page
What is screen time?
Count the device, and also count the activity. Homework, a creative project, a show you are watching together, and a feed designed not to end are all screen time. They do not deserve the same worry. Sleep, movement, and in-person time are the things a long session crowds out, which is why bedtime is a more useful boundary than a guilt total.
AI chats are screen time too. A short homework hint is different from an hour of open-ended talk that the child does not want to leave. You can see the difference if you can read the chat.
Why screen time matters
Moralizing the minutes makes kids hide the device. A calmer approach is to protect sleep, to notice which apps are hard to stop, and to sit with the child for the activities that matter. The AAP's family media guidance is a place to start. It is not a diagnosis.
HeyOtto will not invent a healthy number of minutes. Parents can read chats and set topic limits. Those controls tell you what the time was for.
How it shows up in practice
- A family picks a bedtime when phones charge outside the bedroom.
- Homework on a laptop is separated from a feed on the same laptop.
- A parent looks at a chat transcript instead of only at a weekly minute total.
- Autoplay and streaks are treated as design, not as a child's moral failure.
How HeyOtto helps
Screen time is time spent on phones, tablets, and computers. HeyOtto is not built to maximize minutes in the app. Homework help walks through a step and asks the student to try it, which is a place to stop. A parent can read what the session was about. There are no ad loops pulling a child back.
- Parents can read the chats.
- Topic limits and tool permissions are per child.
- Under 13, verifiable parental consent is part of setup.
For families
Try freeFAQs
Is there a correct number of minutes?
Not one number for every child and every activity. Protect sleep and notice the kind of use. The AAP's media guidance is written that way.
Does AI chat count?
Yes. It is still time on a screen. A transcript tells you whether it was a homework step or a long personal thread.
Will HeyOtto lock the device?
No. Device bedtime controls live on the phone or tablet. HeyOtto's parent tools are the chat, the topic limits, and alerts.
Sources
Last reviewed September 26, 2026. This entry is reviewed twice a year.