The Screen Time feature was first introduced last year in iOS 12 on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Now the feature is also available to Mac users on macOS Catalina.
What are the benefits of the Screen Time function? It's simple - users can analyze and control their usage behavior in detail and set limits. The latter can be viewed as a parental control. But today we just want to introduce you to the basics and help you get started. Screen Time records all usage behavior and summarizes daily or weekly activity in the form of diagrams. Users can then set schedules for screen-free time and even set daily limits for individual app categories. But that's not all. The feature also offers the option of controlling access to offensive content, purchases and downloads. If Screen Time is used for children, the settings can be protected with a password. For example, if the child is only allowed to play games or visit social networks for two hours a day, the parent can make these settings and protect them with a password. The child therefore has no way of manipulating the tool. The whole thing can be managed from iPhone, iPad or Mac devices - it is important to activate iCloud synchronization and family sharing.
How to enable Screen Time on Mac under macOS 10.15 Catalina
Open the macOS settings and navigate to the menu item "Screen Time" in the second line on the right. A new view will now open. Clicking on "Activate" activates the feature - if you want to use the whole thing across devices (iCloud), you must confirm the point "Share across devices" - the same iCloud is required here. The categories App Usage, Notifications, Activations, Timeouts, App Limits, Always Allowed and Content & Privacy are now available. Under "App Usage", for example, you can see the usage time of the individual applications, while the "Notifications" category groups all push notifications.
Under "App Limits" you can limit the use of individual applications. The Screen Time feature offers a lot of useful functions in detail and helps users monitor their activities. Apart from that, it can also be used as an advanced parental control with many options. (Photo by hadrian / Bigstockphoto)
