Here’s How You Can Control Screen Time On An Android Device

In this modern era, your children are exposed to an unbelievable level of technology from phones, tablets, computers, and smart TVs. It’s very difficult to control and maintain how much screen time your child is exposed to daily. If you’ve just bought your child a tablet or are finding that they’re on their Android device far too much, then you’ve come to the right place.

We’ll be covering the best ways that you can control your kid’s screen time when they’ve got an Android device and how you can instill healthy habits to stop them from being so glued to the screen. We’ll also chat about why your children need to restrict screen time and find time to indulge in screenless activities.

If that sounds up your alley then stick around and read on as we discuss everything you need to know about controlling screen time!

Why You Should Restrict Your Kids Screen Time

There are a lot of enticing and engaging videos that your Android device presents to your child, anything from Youtube videos, Buzzfeed articles, Netflix shows, and so much more. It’s easy for an entire afternoon to be swept away if your child’s screen time is left unchecked.

What’s more, having your children spend a large amount of their free time using their screens will stop them from exploring their hobbies, spending time with their friends, and away from the time they could be used to studying. Implementing a restriction on your child’s screen time is a good way to diversify their time and stop them from sinking it all into their Android device.

When your children become teenagers, you can lift these restrictions to boost their responsibilities but you shouldn’t let your kid’s screen time reign free while they’re still young. We’ve listed four healthy habits to control your kid’s screen time below:

4 Healthy Habits To Control Screen Time

If you want to control your kid’s screen time by implementing parental controls that will promote more of a healthy and cultivating atmosphere, then consider reading through our four healthy habits to control screen time and using them with your children!

Let’s not waste any more time and hop right in.

Implement Frequent Breaks

It’s easy to lose an hour of your time on the internet – even for adults! Whether you’re absorbed reading comics online or drawing something on Adobe Illustrator, you need to make sure you’re implementing frequent breaks for your kid.

This will reduce their screen time and decrease the chance of their eyes being hurt from uninterrupted exposure to a screen. This can also give them a chance to chat with other family members about their day and enjoy some more active tasks like chores they’ve forgotten to do.

Introduce Movement Along With Screen Time

Staring at a screen all day means that your child spends most of their time isolated and without much movement going on. You can introduce communal activities that have movement and exercise built in to stimulate them physically.

This could be jumping jacks, a game of hide and seek, or even lending a helping hand with cleaning and chores around the house. You can introduce a system with set rules that allows your child’s screen time to be dictated by how much time they spend completing a chore or exercising outside with friends.

Add Parental Controls To Your Child’s Device

These are mandatory inclusion for most households. Being able to add parental controls has been added to many of the modern devices your child has access to. If your child’s phone is Android or Apple, you can set age restrictions for Youtube or internet browsing so that your child doesn’t get exposed to content you don’t want them to.

You can also set time limits on your child’s device so that they are only able to spend a certain time on any given app. After these time limits are up, they have to focus on homework time or quiet time, and you can set when you want them to use it again and for how long.

Be An Example Of Your Morals

Parental controls are a great way to prevent your child from seeing certain content but one of the best ways of limiting screen time is leading by example. If your child sees you on your phone all the time, they will naturally copy this behavior and also increase their screen time.

The best thing you can do is set your own screen time when you’re not working and engage in your fun hobbies or set up a communal time for games.

Top 3 Apps To Control Screen Time

If you’re not available to monitor your child’s screen time 24/7, then you can always implement and add a parental control app onto your child’s Android device to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Apps like these are often free to use, allow you to customize quite a few features on them, and are great for controlling your child’s screen time. Here are three of our favorite options for screen time apps that you can download today!

OurPact

This app ranks frequently as the best family control app for helping reduce kids’ screen time but that’s not all! It also has features to set allowed apps, for a GPS locater and family locator. Everything you’ve ever needed to block and monitor content can be found in this one app.

Best of all is that OurPact is free to download but does come with a few in-app purchases that are optional for you to buy. The free version should be more than enough for you to get by and set a tablet time limit for your children.

QuStudio Parental Control

If you want to protect your children from viewing unsafe content online then QuStudio is an app that you should consider getting for your children’s screen time. Not only can your set limits for your children’s apps like Youtube and Instagram, but QuStudio also has a real-time filter for when your kid is browsing the internet.

You can monitor your child’s device at a moment’s notice, and see minute-by-minute playback of what they’ve been watching and doing online. QuStudio is one of the best preventative measures you can take to stop your children from being exposed to cyberbullying and limit screen time.

Kidslox

Kidslox is a free application that works on all Android and IOS devices. What we like about Kidslox is the fact that it is not intrusive until one of your chosen rules is broken. It allows parents to limit screen time, stop inappropriate content from showing up while their child is browsing the internet, and monitor their child’s activity on their Android devices.

Kidslox also has the perks of being completely free to download on your child’s device but does contain in-app purchases that are optional but provide more services. It’s a great option if you want to stop your child from having too much screen time and impose a screen time limit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Still, want to know a bit more about how you can reduce your kid’s screen time and place app limits on their devices? Don’t worry, we often receive many relative questions about how kids spend less time on their devices.

We’ve answered a few of the most frequently asked questions below, so your child can go from watching Netflix and playing ABC Mouse to reading or writing!

Can you put a time limit on a tablet?

One of the easiest ways to put a time limit on your tablet is to enable the Family Link app. This app allows you to set a screen time limit for specific apps and then simply tap done! That’s all you need to do. Google Family link is also a great app to schedule screen time for your family.

Make sure to not set any time limits for apps that you want your child to be on. If they’re gifted and are learning about engineering or 3D modeling, then keep those open for longer periods.

Can a tablet last 10 years?

This entirely depends on the tablet you have. Samsung tablets have an average lifespan of about 5 years, based on tablet usage. Apple tablets, or iPads, on the other hand, can have a longer lifespan thanks to their more premium hardware and can last for about 9 years.

Finally, Windows tablets can have a lifespan of up to 12 years so if you value longevity when you’re purchasing a tablet for your children, that’ll be it. Most tablets will still suffer in performance after a few years, so if you’re planning on using it to study in Google Classroom then make sure to change it once its performance dips.

How do I regulate my tablet time?

There are plenty of applications that are built into your Android device that would allow you to regulate your screen time, set a daily limit to how much screen time you can spend on certain apps, and also keep your kids safe online.

This is under the Digital Wellbeing section of your tablet, and if you’re a college student or a working adult, there’s a lot you can do to set screen time limits or download a screen time app for your device.

Parting Shot/Conclusion

It’s always important to consider your app usage and daily limits as a treat when you’re not using them for work. When you’re not using your device for work, you should set aside time for personal hobbies and family rather than more time on your Android device.

Hopefully, this article has given you enough information to use your web browsing apps and own devices healthily, and great resources to deploy monitoring features for your kid’s apps too.