Too much "Screen Time"

New York Times:  The term screen time was first used in the New York Times was in November of 1997 during an interview between Tom Hanks and Ben Affleck.  Hanks and Affleck were discussing the movie industry and their own works, past, present, and future.  In this context, "screen time" was used to describe how a full day at work filming a movie that wasn't an independent film, meant maybe shooting "a minute and a half of screen time."
(A note however is that ProQuest only has coverage of the NY Times from Jan. 5, 1986 to the present.  A search on the magazine's website uncover's an article about the U.S. movies capturing 70% of all screen time across the world)
(http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/docview/215502451?accountid=465)


Chicago Tribune:  I definitely laughed when I found this one... The first time that "screen time" was found in the the Chicago Tribune was in 1914 in an ad for new screens for your windows to keep flies out!

Display ad 6 -- no title. (1914, May 18). Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/docview/173805016?accountid=465

Los Angeles Times: ...and again an ad for screen doors to keep the flies out - Fly Time is Screen Time!

ProQuest (1970), Project Muse (1987), & JStor (1962):  All used in the context of discussing films.
(http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/docview/197136970?accountid=465)
(Freyer, E.(1987). Adapting Children's Books for Television: Interviews with Mary Pleshette Willis and Malcolm Marmorstein. The Lion and the Unicorn 11(2), 73-86. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved September 21, 2014, from Project MUSE database.)
(Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 128, The Motion Picture in Its Economic and Social Aspects (Nov., 1926), pp. 100-108)

So the ultimate question, does "screen time" have the same meaning today?
I would say in most ways, yes.  This term definitely is still used in conjunction with the discussions of films.  However, I think it has expanded some.  The term is often used in reference to how much screen time a particular actor or actress had.  But it is also used in reference to commercials capturing lengths screen time or the products having product placement screen time in movies, TV shows, etc.
The largest difference in its use however, is by parents in the context of parents monitoring the screen time that their kids are exposed to or allowed to have.

Whether kids, actors, or brands, it appears as though it has always been everyone's goal to capture as much of it as possible!