screen time

or screen·time

[ skreen tahym ]

noun

1. the amount of time devoted to a particular actor, topic, plot line, etc., in a film or TV show:

   The female characters got less screen time than the male characters in all the film festival nominations.

2. Digital Technology. the amount of time a person spends watching or interacting with content on the screen of a computer, phone, TV, gaming console, etc.:

   What's the maximum amount of screen time recommended for children under two?

Word History and Origins

Origin of screen time¹

First recorded in 1915–20, and in 1990–95 screen time fordef 2

Example Sentences

There are other ways we can describe our tech relationships—as “habits,” for example—that make our screen time feel like an aspect of our lives we can gradually change instead of a toxin that must be expelled.

From MIT Technology Review

We see some students who have become worrisomely tethered to screen time during the closure.

From Washington Post

This framing conflates digital screen time to video games, which are two different things.

From Washington Post

In children, excessive screen time has been linked to developmental delays and behavioral issues.

From Popular-Science

So Yurich launched a website to give other parents resources and inspiration to replace screen time with outdoor time.

From Outside Online

As with so many things, keeping screen time in moderate amounts seems key.

From The Daily Beast

And, of course, it recommends keeping screen time limited, so as not to supplant other, real-world play and exploration.

From The Daily Beast

As far as the characters these actors will play, or how much screen time they'll have, well, that remains largely a mystery.

From The Daily Beast

Judi Dench won for her five minutes of screen time in Shakespeare in Love, but far be it from me to poo-poo a Dench win.

From The Daily Beast

That comes out to an astonishing $8,333 per second of screen time, or roughly $500,000 a minute.

From The Daily Beast