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I don't want my children to watch too much TV/ or anything on tablets/phones/ laptops/ smart watches...

I don't want to give an exhausting list like that when talking to my children. For examples "You shouldn't watch too much TV, cartoons, youtube videos etc on phones, tablets, etc".

Someone told me to say "watch screens" for short.

For example, "you shouldn't spend too much time watching screens"

But "screen" is not uncountable, so we can not say "you shouldn't watch too much screen" the same way we say "you shouldn't watch too much tv"

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    I tend to hear this expressed as "you shouldn't have too much screen time".
    – Jeff Zeitlin
    Commented Jun 6 at 12:23
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    Many parents say, "You shouldn't spend too much time watching screens." Good English, but a vague instruction and empty rule, so it dissipates the parent's authority. How much is too much, and what do you want them to do instead?
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Jun 6 at 12:43

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Screen Time

As Jeff noted in the comments, screen time is a common new term used to describe any time a person spends looking at a digital screen, regardless of the device it is on. Here are some examples of its usage:

I limit my children's screen time to 1 hour on school days and 2 hours on weekends.

You have had enough screen time for now. It's time to go play outside.

My screen time is really high, I need to find ways to take more breaks.

Watching Screens

While the above phrasing is the most common, watching screens is also fine and easily understood. Your first example works well:

You shouldn't spend too much time watching screens.

As you point out, this cannot be immediately substituted for other, more specific phrases. However, they can be reworded to work better as in the following example:

You shouldn't watch screens too much.

One note about this phrasing (especially if talking to a child or someone who is likely to be petulant about restriction), is that "watch" is inherently passive and specifically means "consuming content without interacting with it." For example, one might watch TV or a movie or YouTube. However, one would not watch a video game (unless someone else was the one playing it). And to watch a social media site usually means something different as well.

This could lead to situations where you tell a child "Don't watch screens for more than an hour" and then the child says "I wasn't watching, I was playing!

Because of this, screen time is a more encompassing phrase.

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    Also "use screens," if we need a verb phrase instead of noun
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jun 6 at 14:56
  • watch/use screens is understable but more common specifically here is screen time.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jun 6 at 15:09
  • I saw this "We try not to let our children have too much screen time." in the dictionary. That is shorter and better that "spend too much time on screens"
    – Tom
    Commented Jun 7 at 0:48

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