Tim Cook has revealed his fear that Apple device users could be looking at their iPhones and iPads too often, and that too many push notifications are bad.

"If you are looking at your phone more than you are looking at someone's eyes you are doing the wrong thing," he said during the Time 100 summit in the US (as reported by Sky News).

"Apple never wanted to maximise user time, we're not motivated by this by a business point of view."

His comments come at a time that screen time and the overuse of phones, tablets and TVs are hot topics. The World Health Organisation, for example, published a report yesterday on how screen time affects the under-fives and advised guidelines on how parents should encourage children to play away from entertainment gadgetry.

The Apple CEO himself also revealed how he is managing his own screen time, including the culling of push notifications: "I asked myself: 'Do I really need to be getting thousands of notifications a day?'

"It's not something that is adding value to my life, or is making me a better person. So I went in and chopped that," he said.

With the release of iOS 12, Apple iPhones and iPads gained a Screen Time feature that measures and informs owners how much time they spend using their devices. It sends a weekly report of use, although whether you take notice of it or not is up to you.