Screen Time Problems: Gray Bars / Time Doesn't Add up (and Downtime Settings Changing)

I use Screen Time to try to manage my kids' phone use. As a parent, I consider the ability to do this a critical part of responsibly allowing my kids to have smart phones, and I consider providing a reliable service like Screen Time to be a critical part of Apple responsibly selling smart phones for kids. This post is to provide information I've found on some common Screen Time problems, and it's to express my frustration with the service.

I've had two major problems with Screen Time. First, on a regular basis the downtime settings simply turn on and off on their own. This is maddening. However, I've found a workaround using Verizon Smart Family that's good enough.

Second, the screen time data that Apple provides doesn't make sense, in two ways. First, the bar graph Apple uses to depict screen time includes a gray portion for which no usage time or type is provided. Second, the total screen time shown does not match the sum of the time breakdowns provided by Apps/Websites or by Category of Apps/Websites. On the attached screenshots I've highlighted the bars with the gray portion, the total screen time provided, and the time breakdowns by both Apps/Websites and by Category of Apps/Websites.

I'm not the first person to post about these issues. I've read many threads and many articles about them, but I haven't found any clear answers. Hence, I reached out to Apple Support. Here's what they told me: The gray portion of the bars and the difference between total screen time and the sum of screen time by Apps/Websites or Categories of Apps/Websites is a function of (a) time spent on apps that have been deleted and/or (b) Apple background processes.

I trust that it's true that deleted apps may be part of the issue in some cases, but that's not a material part of the issue for me. My kids aren't deleting apps every day, and I always have gray bars on my own screen time. So the issue, apparently, is Apple background processes.

Knowing this does enable me to ignore the total screen time number and the graphs and focus on adding up time by the individual App/Website or Category breakdowns to get a total screen time number. That process, however, is much less convenient and comes with no graph, summary or trend information. And that is particularly frustrating because it makes absolutely no sense for Apple to be reflecting background phone processes in a service used to track *SCREEEN TIME*. It completely defeats the purpose. Inexplicable.

Moreover, I only learned this information after spending hours and hours of my time trying to figure it out. Like most parents, I am extremely busy and don't have hours and hours of spare time trying to make sense of features that should be very simple.

Apple needs to make it a priority to fix and otherwise improve all aspects of this service. Smart phones can be a great tool, but like anything they can be abused and be harmful to kids. Apple should not be profiting greatly off of kids using its smart phones while it does not provide parents with appropriate tools to monitor and manage them.