I recently resumed using iOS Screen Time, found in Settings, to keep track of my iPhone usage. As suspected, I spend too much time on Social Media, in particular Facebook. Lots of other useful info, like how often the phone got picked up, what apps were launched after that. Nice little bar graphs to show you what's going on. What's not so nice is there are these gray bars that don't seem to match anything. You would think the Internet has the answer to everything, but after some Googling, or maybe Bing-ing, the answer is either Miscellaneous Apps or, gasp, Background Tasks carried out by the iPhone itself. I am not convinced of either answer but if I have to choose one it would be Miscellaneous. If it's Background Tasks, then this is a classic case of the nerdy engineer collecting info that is useless for the average user. Screen Time's primary use is for the user to see how much time he uses the apps. Things that he initiated. Background Tasks are not initiated by the users and should not be included in a graph that shows how user spends his time. Maybe in The Matrix, the Computer Overlord may be interested in Background Tasks, but out here in our simulated world, we only care how much time we spend scrolling down our Facebook Wall.
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