Screen Time for Kids: Age-by-Age Limits That Hold Up in Real Life

What the official guidelines say

The World Health Organization published its guidance for the youngest children back in 2019: no screen at all before age one, and no more than an hour a day for ages two to four; less is better.

National guidelines vary by country and tend to be stricter than what families expect. Russia’s ministry of education, for example, published age brackets in July 2026: up to 20 minutes a day at ages two to three, up to an hour before school age, up to an hour and a half through age eleven, and up to two hours for teenagers under sixteen.

Both sets of guidelines count total screen time for the day. The phone, the tablet, the TV and the computer all land in one bucket, so “an hour on the tablet, then cartoons” already breaks the limit.

To see the figures for your child’s exact age side by side, with a sample day built around them, try our screen time by age calculator.

For a step-by-step plan at each age, see how to get kids off phones.

What actually happens

Family reality sits far from these numbers, and screen time reports show it plainly: a schoolkid often burns through the recommended hour and a half before lunch, and the evening adds as much again.

There is no need to feel guilty about it. A guideline is a reference point, not a verdict: it shows the direction. If today adds up to four hours, a sensible goal for this month is three — the ideal ninety minutes can wait until later.

Why one hour is not like another

An hour of homework on the computer and an hour of short videos load a child differently, even though the counter shows the same 60 minutes. That is why doctors talk about entertainment screen time and count schoolwork separately.

Time of day changes the price of a minute too: a video after school is rest, the same video at midnight is stolen sleep and a cranky morning.

The hours on the counter also say little about addiction. Doctors look at other signs, and we collected them in our article on phone addiction in kids.

How to cut back without a fight

A sudden “one hour a day starting tomorrow, period” almost always ends in a revolt. Gradual works better: half an hour less per week, with the rules agreed in advance.

Second, fill the freed-up time. The screen lets go more easily when something replaces it: a sports class, a walk, a board game, even cooking together.

Third, step out of the enforcer role. When an app counts the minutes, the child argues with a timer, and you stop being the bad cop: the agreement stays in the family, the countdown goes to the software.

A written plan on the fridge makes the new limit easier to keep. Here's a family media plan template to start from.

What counts as screen time

Count the entertainment: games, videos, social feeds, shows. Homework on the computer, a video call with grandma, or a book on the tablet are a different kind of hour, and lumping them into the same counter is unfair.

Night is its own line. A screen within an hour of bedtime disrupts sleep more than an extra half hour at noon, so an evening cutoff does more good than a perfectly measured daily total. How to get sleep back without a nightly fight is covered in child on the phone at night.

How this looks in Gardion reports

Gardion counts time for each app separately, so you can see what actually eats the day: an hour in Roblox, twenty minutes in a messenger, ten in a study app.

Limits bend to your family’s rules: an overall daily cap, a separate one for games, a schedule that closes entertainment after bedtime. On Premium, study apps stay open in school mode and never spend the limit. Trying it costs nothing: 14 days of full access on Android and Windows, no card needed. For computer limits, see parental controls on Windows.