screen time

noun

1

: the amount of time someone or something appears on screen in a movie or television show

… the widespread practice of product placement (in which companies buy screen time for their brands) …

—Celia Wren

Peck's role is only a cameo—23 minutes of screen time scattered through six and a half hours of edited film …

—John Skow

2

: time spent watching television, playing a video game, or using an electronic device with a screen (such as a smartphone or tablet)

Concerns about children spending too much time on digital devices—'screen time'—and becoming overdependent on these devices are very real for many teachers and parents.

—Nicky Hockly

If yours is like most American families with kids under age 5, your child probably watches between three and four hours of television a day. That's a lot of screen time …

—Debra Kent

Examples of screen time in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Designing the float With just a few seconds of TV screen time, Rao’s had to design an eye-catching float that breaks through a three-hour telecast. —Jordan Valinsky, CNN, 28 Oct. 2024

Keri Russell’s titular ambassador Kate Wyler will be getting less screen time when The Diplomat returns on Oct. 31. —Michael Ausiello, TVLine, 27 Oct. 2024

Elsa Lanchester earned her place in film history with no dialogue and only three minutes of screen time as the beast's eponymous Bride, a performance that was influenced by Lanchester's negative observations of swans and made all the more bizarre by her stiff hairdo and foot-and-a-half tall stilts. —Katie Rife, EW.com, 18 Oct. 2024

In 2022, people with disabilities accounted for 8.8% of screen time, but those with visible disabilities made up only 0.4%, according to a Nielsen study. —Emiliana Betancourt, Variety, 16 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1921, in the meaning defined at sense 1