Take Advantage of Screen Time
Screen Time lets you monitor and control your and your family’s device usage, and is controlled from Settings > Screen Time.
To enable Screen Time, tap Turn on Screen Time on that screen. You’re asked if you’re setting up the device for you or a child, which you can change later.
After you’ve turned on Screen Time, there are a couple of more settings you might want to consider:
Do you want to set a Screen Time passcode, which must be entered to change Screen Time settings or override limits? If you’re the only person to use the device, it’s probably not worth it unless you need additional friction to enforce self-discipline, but if your kids use the device it might be a good idea. You can set that with Use Screen Time Passcode.
Do you want to share Screen Time settings across devices? That’s enabled by default in at the bottom of the Screen Time settings screen, and probably makes the most sense, but if you want to manage screen time per device, turn off Share Across Devices.
Set Up Screen Time for Children
If you have Family Sharing set up, you can use Screen Time with a child’s account:
Go to Settings > Screen Time.
Scroll down and tap on the child’s name.
Tap Turn On Screen Time.
You see a list of things you can do with Screen Time. Tap Continue.
The app prompts you to set up start and end times for daily downtime. Tap Not Now if you don’t want to.
The app prompts you to set app limits per category. Select categories you want to limit and tap Time Amount to set the daily limit. Or tap Not Now to skip this.
After displaying information about content and privacy settings you can restrict, the app asks you to enter a four-digit passcode that is required to bypass any restrictions or change Screen Time settings.
Finally, the Screen Time page for that child appears.
To turn off Screen Time for that child, go to Settings > Screen Time > Child’s Name and tap Turn Off Screen Time.
Check Your App Usage
Curious about how much you use your devices and which apps you use the most? A chart at the top of Settings > Screen Time offers a breakdown of how long you’ve used various app categories today (Figure 46).
Tap See All Activity to see a more detailed chart, a breakdown of how long you’ve used each app, how frequently you pick up your devices, and how many notifications you get. You can also see these same metrics for the past seven days.
Set Time Limits for Apps
You can limit how much time you spend with apps and websites each day:
Go to Settings > Screen Time > App Limits.
Tap Add Limit.
Select a category from the list, such as Social Networking or Games. Or tap the arrow on the right to expose individual apps that you can select.
Tap Next.
Use the dials to set your daily limit, which can range from 0 minutes to 23 hours and 59 minutes.
After setting the time limit, the Customize Days option appears, which lets you set time limits for each day of the week if you like.
When finished, tap Add.
To delete a limit:
Go to Settings > Screen Time > App Limits.
Tap the limit you want to delete.
Tap Delete Limit.
Tap Delete Limit again.
When your time is up, a Time Limit screen appears if you’re in the app or if you try to open the app. From that screen, you can choose to ignore the limit for 15 minutes or the entire day.
If you’re outside the app, the app’s icons on the Home screen is darkened, with an hourglass 
icon next to the app name (Figure 47).
Set Downtime for Yourself
In Settings > Screen Time > Downtime, you can set a daily time away from the screen, where all but a few select apps are blocked out. The default period is from 10 P.M. to 7 A.M., but you can customize those times down to the minute.
Choose Always Allowed Apps
Some apps are always allowed, like Phone and Settings. But there may be other apps you always want access to. For instance, if you like to read yourself to sleep, you may want to always have access to the Books app. Here’s how to set always allowed apps:
Go to Settings > Screen Time > Always Allowed. There you see two lists: Allowed Apps, which are set to always be allowed, and Choose Apps, which are apps that are otherwise restricted by Screen Time.
To add an allowed app, tap the green plus
button.To remove an allowed app, tap the red delete
button.
Control Your Contacts
You can also control when you interact with people in Phone, FaceTime, and Messages. Go to Settings > Screen Time > Communication Limits to control who you can communicate with while Screen Time is enabled and who you can communicate with during Downtime:
During Screen Time: Here you can set it so you can communicate with everyone (default), only your contact, or contacts and groups with at least one contact included.
During Downtime: For Downtime, you can set it to everyone, or list only specific contacts that you wish to hear from.
You can also set these limits for children in your Family Sharing group, in Settings > Screen Time > Child’s Name > Communication Limits. From that screen, you can edit a child’s list of contacts by flipping the Manage Child’s Name Contacts switch. Under the new Contacts menu that appears, you can add contacts. To delete a contact, select it, tap Edit, and then tap Delete Contact at the bottom of the contact card.