Screen Time Budget Calculator
Screen time adds up quietly: an hour here and there becomes a large slice of your year. This calculator turns a daily screen time budget into the figures that make the trade-off real: the share of your waking day it takes, the weekly total, and the yearly total in both hours and full days. Enter your daily budget, how many hours you sleep, and it shows where that time goes over a week and a year, so you can decide whether the budget fits your priorities.
Screen time budget formula
Waking hours per day = 24 - sleep
Share of waking hours = daily budget / waking hours * 100
Weekly total = daily budget * 7
Yearly total (hours) = daily budget * 365
Yearly total (full days) = yearly hours / 24
The share compares your screen budget against the hours you are actually awake, which is a fairer denominator than 24. Weekly and yearly totals scale the daily figure over those periods.
Worked example
A 2-hour daily budget with 8 hours of sleep. Waking hours = 24 minus 8 = 16. Share = 2 / 16 times 100 = 12.50 percent of your waking day. Weekly total = 2 times 7 = 14.00 hours. Yearly total = 2 times 365 = 730.00 hours, which is 730 / 24 = 30.42 full days.
Screen time budget: frequently asked questions
How do I set a screen time budget?
Decide how many hours a day you want to spend on screens for leisure, then compare it against your waking hours to see what share of your day it takes. This calculator turns a daily target into weekly and yearly totals and shows the percentage of your waking time it consumes, so the trade-off is concrete.
What counts as screen time?
That is up to you. Many people budget recreational screen time (streaming, social media, games) separately from work or study screen use. Enter whichever screen hours you want to track; the calculator simply scales the daily figure you provide.
How much screen time is too much?
There is no single healthy number for adults, and guidance focuses more on sleep, physical activity, and balance than on a fixed cap. For children, paediatric bodies do publish age-based guidance. Use this tool to set and track a personal budget rather than to define a clinical limit.
Why show the yearly total?
Small daily habits compound. Two hours a day is 730 hours a year, the equivalent of about 30 full days. Seeing the annual figure makes the long-run cost of daily screen time visible and can help you decide whether your budget matches your priorities.
Sources and method
- Method: the daily budget scaled over a 7-day week and a 365-day year, with the waking-hour share computed against 24 minus sleep hours. All inputs are user-supplied.
- Screen time and health context, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: cdc.gov.
Reviewed by the CalculatorHub team, edited by James Graham, 19 June 2026. See our methodology.