Is there a way to monitor or document screen time?

Question

We just got our 11yo set up with Minecraft Java Edition on Ubuntu 20.04 and he's thrilled, but we had gotten used to the screen time monitoring we had available on his iPad, when that was his only option. I'm trying to find another solution that will let him and us see how he's spending time on his laptop.

For the kid, I'd like him to be able to check on how much time he's spent on Minecraft. This can be something we look at together to talk about how he spending time, it doesn't need to be something that will lock him out when his time is up or something I control remotely.

I'd also love to track time on social media for both of us. On his iPad we can see how much time he spends on sites like YouTube and TikTok where he can fall down a real rabbit hole and not even realize he spent two hours watching videos.I'd love a snapshot of how much time I'm spending on my own rabbit hole sites.

Is there a way to track either time in apps or time with specific domains open, at the user level?

Answer 1

There is also an app called ActivityWatch that may be interesting.

Answer 2

Ubuntu actually has some documentation on parental controls, which you can find here; https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ParentalControls

If you and your kid has a Steam account, or plan on getting them one soon, Steam has something along the name of "Family View" (I don't remember the exact name) mode, but I don't know how well it works, but it could help. Keep in mind Steam is a 13+ platform, although your kid should be fine as long as they stay on the safer side. I know many people that play Minecraft also enjoy Roblox (including me!), but unfortunately Roblox can't run under Linux if he wants to play that (even with Wine)

There's also "Edubuntu" (formerly Ubuntu Education Edition), but I don't know much about Edubuntu, and I would recommend against it as it hasn't had a new release in over 4 years.

Mind the Time is a Firefox Extension that provides some time tracking. It's not listed in the Ubuntu Parental Controls but is a good way to track the sites you're spending time.