After reading an article about our societal addiction to smartphones, I’d like to find out just what sort of time I’m spending each day on my phone. I’d like to see the numbers of how often I check my phone each day, how much time am I spending on average each day on Chrome or on QT3, playing games (I don’t really do this much), etc. Any good recommendations for Android? There seems to be a ton of different apps out there. The more detailed feedback available the better and preferably not an app that is going to just take all my information and sell it to someone.
I’ve just started using Rescue Time and find the free version does exactly what you’re describing quite well.
I also use and recommend Rescue Time.
So if I install Rescue Time and I bring up Qt3 on my PC and later walk away from it, leaving the website open, does Rescue Time know I am no longer viewing it?
I have some Steam games showing I’ve played them dozens of hours when I’ve barely played them, just because I left them open and alt-tabbed to something else.
I think it only counts time for the window / app in focus (at the front), and ignores any if the screen saver etc is on.
I don’t run a screen saver. I just turn off my monitor.
So to get useful data from this I’d have to be diligent about closing apps. If I had a game up and suspended it, turned off the monitor, it would think I was still playing.
I’m not that worried about my screen time, I guess. I am not a big phone user and on work days I often barely use my PC at home.
It probably activates and deactivates based on input and/or mouse/keyboard, detecting idle time. I’m not certain, though.
If you minimize all (e.g. “show desktop”) I think this stops the tracking.
In addition to RescueTime, which I use for tracking app times mostly to keep myself from binging a game too hard, I also suggest Digital Wellbeing on Android and Cold Turkey on Windows. Both allow blocking specific apps (or force quiting) once a time quota for the day has been exceeded, and work very well in my experience if the gentle reminders from RescueTime are not enough.