My kid is turning 3 next month. We never give her screens to look at. We don't even have a TV at home. Sometimes there are TVs at restaurants, but that's unavoidable, and they stay there. We of course have laptops, tablets, and mobile phones, but the kid never gets them. The only time she looks at a tablet is on a high desk when we're doing family exercises together while watching an exercise video, or if there are no options to draw, she sometimes can draw using her finger on the Notes app.
It's extreme, but we're going to keep going this way for as long as possible. She's fine in the car, she sings gibberish, looks out the window, and I'm not sure what else, but she's obviously doing something while I drive. We sometimes have a conversation.
There were times when she would scream a lot in the car, but it was always because she was cranky because she hadn't napped yet. Driving somewhere was actually a great trick for getting her to nap. At restaurants, she likes scribbling with crayons on paper when the restaurant has that, or she likes walking around with me and exploring the restaurant while we wait for food. Or she just crawls all over her chair, the bench, etc. We also bring some children's books with us, she loves flipping through them and looking at the pictures. But she usually doesn't need the books.
This probably doesn't work for every kid. But for my kid, I've developed the theory that if she never really experiences using a tablet, phone, etc, her mind can be imaginative enough to entertain herself in other ways.
Heck, it worked for me when I was that age, I'm sure; tablets sure didn't exist back then! Gonna keep this going for as long as we can. I refused to get a cell phone when I was in undergrad for pete's sake. Times sure have changed. I imagine that as soon as she normalizes using any kind of screen, she'll want it nonstop. The hope is that by the time we can't avoid it anymore, her brain will have developed enough to be able to self-regulate with our guidance.