Ready-Made Antidrot Settings: How Much Play and Break Time to Give Your Child

These keys are a good place to start: for a primary school child, 1800.600.5400 (30 minutes of play, a 10-minute break, a 1.5-hour limit); for a middle school child, 2700.900.10800; for a teenager on weekdays, 3600.600.7200, and at weekends, 3600.900.14400. These are starting points, not medical standards: adjust them to your own child and your family rules.

How to read S.R.M settings

Each setting is the three numbers, in seconds, that an access key starts with:

• S is how long play time lasts while the window is hidden;
• R is how long the break lasts while the window is on screen;
• M is the total limit from the moment the key is entered, breaks included.

After a break the window doesn't disappear by itself: your child presses “Continue”, and the next play period begins. Until the button is pressed, no play time is used, but the total limit keeps running. Once the limit is over, the window stays until a new key is entered. The key format and converting hours to seconds are covered in detail in Access key: how to give your child time.

Table of ready-made settings

* If “Continue” is pressed right after every break. With long pauses there will be less play time, because the total limit keeps running while the program waits.

Let's see where these figures come from, using a teenager's weekday as an example. With the key 3600.600.7200, there's first an hour of play, then a 10-minute break. That leaves 50 minutes until the limit, so the program trims the second play period to 50 minutes by itself. When it ends, the limit is used up: there's one last break with a countdown, and after that the window stays on screen until a new key. In total, that's about 1 hour 50 minutes of play and two breaks.

To give a key, open the key generator and enter the time in hours and minutes, or send the S.R.M numbers to the Telegram bot. The generator has its own presets too: “30 min / 10 min / 2 h” (1800.600.7200), “45 min / 15 min / 3 h” (2700.900.10800), “1 h / 10 min / 4 h” (3600.600.14400) and “1 h / 15 min / 12 h” (3600.900.43200). The last one is handy on a free day: the limit covers almost the whole day, but with a break every hour.

Why the sets are built this way

Primary school child: 1800.600.5400

Short 30-minute periods: younger children find it harder to tear themselves away from a game on their own, and frequent breaks give their eyes and back a rest. An hour and a half of limit means two full play-and-break rounds plus a short third period of 10 minutes: the program trims it to whatever is left of the limit, and a final break follows.

Middle school child: 2700.900.10800

45 minutes is enough to get through a chunk of the story or play a couple of short matches. A 15-minute break is time to get up, stretch, drink some water and look away from the screen. A three-hour limit gives three full rounds, or about 2 hours 15 minutes of play.

Teenager: 3600.600.7200 on weekdays and 3600.900.14400 at weekends

Teenagers find it easier to go an hour without a break, but they also have more to fit into a weekday: homework, clubs, sleep. So on weekdays the limit is 2 hours — an hour of play, a break and about 50 more minutes. At weekends the limit is 4 hours, and the break is longer, at 15 minutes.

“One match”: 3000.600.3600

For online games where a match can't be paused. 50 minutes for the match, then a 10-minute break, and the one-hour limit is over, so the window stays until a new key. If the matches in your child's game are shorter or longer, change S and M.

“Play once”: 3600.0.3600

An hour of play with no break and no repeats. When the hour is up, the window appears and stays until a new key. It suits days when there's little time for games and no break is needed in between.

These are guidelines, not medical standards

The values above are a convenient starting point, not a doctor's recommendation. Children's health organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics advise going beyond counting minutes and making a family media plan: when screens don't belong (at meals, before bed) and what matters more than games (sleep, school, physical activity, time with people face to face). How much time is appropriate at different ages is covered in How much gaming time for kids.

Don't go by age alone. Two children of the same age may need very different amounts of time, and the same child may need different amounts during a school week and during the holidays. Age tells you where to start; watching your own child tells you the final numbers.

If your child complains about their eyes, sleeps badly, tires quickly, or you feel games are crowding out everything else, talk to your pediatrician.

How to pick a set for your family

• Age and self-control. If your child finds it hard to stop playing on their own, start with short periods, even if their age suggests an older set.
• Day of the week. Use a smaller limit on weekdays and allow more at weekends and during the holidays. How to plan the day during the holidays is covered in School holiday routine.
• Type of game. If the game can be paused, any periods will do. For online matches, “one match” works better, or an S with enough margin for a whole match.
• One key or several. When the limit runs out, the window stays until a new key, and nothing stops you from giving one later. At weekends you could, for example, give one key in the morning and another in the evening, and on weekdays one after school.
• When the key is entered. The limit counts from the moment of entry. A 3-hour key entered at 19:00 ends at 22:00. Make sure the limit ends well before bedtime, not right before it — why this matters is explained in Gaming before bed and your child's sleep.

How to fine-tune the settings

1. Pick a set from the table and live with it for a week or two.
2. Look not only at the minutes but also at mood: does your child pause easily, how do the breaks go, do they get their homework done and go to bed on time?
3. Change one number at a time. Arguments at every break? Try longer periods with the same limit. Irritable after playing? Shorten S. Not enough time for homework? Reduce M.
4. Discuss changes with your child in advance, not at the moment the window appears.

It helps when the chosen settings are written into your shared rules: then the Antidrot window simply reminds everyone of the agreement instead of becoming a reason to fight. How to draw up such rules is covered in A family screen time agreement.

Values best avoided

• S = 0: the window won't hide, so there's no play time at all.
• M = 0: one play period and one break, then the window stays until a new key. Sometimes that's handy, but it's clearer to set the limit explicitly.
• S greater than M: the program trims play time to the limit, so the key 7200.600.3600 gives one hour, not two.

In all other cases, feel free to experiment: keys work only once, and the next one can have different numbers.