Step 1Turn your phone data into categories
Your iPhone groups apps into its own categories. The assignment asks for five different ones, so first decide which phone category goes where. This matters because every total later depends on it.
Step 2Set up the columns
Open a blank workbook. Type a title in A1, leave row 2 empty and put the headers in row 3:
| A | B | C | D | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Technology Use Tracker (28 Sep – 4 Oct) | ||||
| 2 | |||||
| 3 | Date | Activity Type | Start Time | End Time | Total Duration (mins) |
Make the headers look like headers
- Select
A3:E3. Press Ctrl+B for bold. - Use Home → Fill Colour to pick a light colour.
- Use Home → Wrap Text so long headers fit.
- Double-click the line between column letters to auto-fit the width.
Step 3Enter your data
Enter one row for each block of activity. Type times like 6:00 PM, with a colon and a space before AM/PM. Excel then knows it's a time and not text.
6.00pm or 6:00PM with no space. Excel treats these as text, and your formulas in Step 4 will break. To check, a real time lines up on the right of the cell. Text lines up on the left.Here's your week, taken from your screenshots. The phone gives a total for each category. The start times are read from the hourly bar chart, so they're close but not exact.
Show my data (34 rows)
| Date | Activity Type | Start | End |
|---|
Format the date column: select column A, then right-click → Format Cells → Date. Format the time columns the same way, using Time → 1:30 PM.
Step 4Calculated field 1: Total Duration
Excel stores time as a fraction of a day. So 12:00 PM is stored as 0.5, and 6:00 AM is stored as 0.25.
That means End − Start gives you a fraction of a day. To turn it into minutes, multiply by the number of minutes in a day: 24 × 60 = 1440.
Try it: see what Excel sees
Fill it down
Click E4 and double-click the small square in its bottom-right corner. Excel copies the formula to every row and changes 4 to 5, 6 and so on as it goes. This is called a relative reference.
Tip: if you get odd decimals like 147.9999, wrap the formula in ROUND: =ROUND((D4-C4)*1440,0).
Below your last row, add a grand total: =SUM(E4:E37) (change 37 to your last row).
Step 5Total per category with SUMIF
Make a small summary table to the right, starting in G3. Put one category in each row: G4 Social Media, G5 Streaming, G6 Online Learning & Homework, G7 Work-Related, G8 Gaming & Other Entertainment, G9 Other (Utilities). Put Total in G10.
SUMIF adds up only the rows that match a condition:
In words: look down column B, find every row that says the same as G4 ("Social Media"), and add up their minutes from column E.
G4 to move to G5, but the data range should stay put. A $ locks it in place, which is called an absolute reference. Press F4 after selecting a range to add the $ signs for you.=SUMIF(B4:B37,G4,E4:E37) without $ and filled it down. What goes wrong in G5?
Add =SUM(H4:H9) in H10. H10 should match your grand total from Step 4. If it doesn't, a category name is spelt differently somewhere. SUMIF needs an exact match.
Optional: add a Hours column in I with =ROUND(H4/60,1).
Step 6Calculated field 2: Percentage
The percentage is that category divided by the total. In J4:
Then click Home → % to show it as a percentage. Fill it down. The column should add up to 100%.
Compare with an answer
Each row divides a different category (H4, H5, H6…) by the same total. So the category reference has to move as you fill down, but the total has to stay put.
Productive vs recreational
In column K, label each category Productive (learning, work), Recreational (social, streaming, gaming) or Other. Then use SUMIF again on that column:
Divide by 7 to get a daily average. This gives you the trend the assignment asks for: how much of your daily screen time is productive.
Step 7Pie chart
- Select
G3:H9, which is the category names and minutes. Don't include the Total row. If you do, Total becomes half the pie. - Go to Insert → Pie → 2-D Pie.
- Click the title and rename it, e.g. "Online Time by Activity".
- Click the + next to the chart, tick Data Labels, then choose More Options and tick Percentage.
- Drag the chart so it sits on the same sheet without covering your data.
Step 8Reflection
Write this yourself. Use your own numbers and your goal from Topic 3. Answer these three questions in 5–7 sentences:
- Look at your numbers. What did you spend the most time on, and what % was productive? When in the day did it happen?
- Compare them to your goal from Topic 3. Does your phone use help that goal or get in the way? Give one honest example.
- What will you change? Pick 2 or 3 specific changes, e.g. an app limit, phone out of the bedroom, or study before social media.
To put it in Excel, put the text in a cell below your data. Then select a block of cells under it (e.g. A41:E48), click Merge & Centre → Merge Cells, and turn on Wrap Text.