The Doomscroll is Real
We all know I have an addictive personality and this has become evident in my social media consumption. The hours I’ve spent on it have not been great and it’s really become the reflex to just pick it up and scroll a bit. I know I can control it when I have a good book that I’m reading, but it’s all pretty stop gap and then I’m back to spending hours on Instagram and Twitter.
SIx months ago, I tried downloading the app OneSec and though it’s succeeded to a certain degree, I definitely found ways around this. Like instead of opening Instagram the app, I would just go on Instagram mobile view (which isn’t a great replacement) but just showed how addicted I was to the damn thing. really like a second nature.
So I’m trying things. I read this book called, “Attention Span” and true enough, we know I’ve got a pretty short one but it’s also got to do with my personality. And though tech can’t solve my problems, it can definitely ease me into it. I’ve found that if I just give in and time box the social scrolling to give myself the permission to only scroll for five minutes (before a meeting or a dinner) and making sure I have an actual activity in the evening that isn’t just going through my phone, it’ll be ok.
I know my weak moments are right when I wake up, while on the commute and right before I get to bed so I’ve been trying to find alternative activities to fill in the time:
When I wake up now, I try to not even look at my phone and I’ve already set it so that OneSec wont allow me to open socials for an hour after I wake up. That’s both useful and helps me get up. I also deleted Reddit from my phone cause rather than go to Twitter, I just replaced it with reddit.
On the commute, I’ll start with my meditation (i’m quite bad) and then do my journaling and then read the book I’m reading at the moment. I have one long bus ride ahead of me but I’m lucky that I get some reading in. I’ll try to limit myself to one phone check every 15 minutes.
When I reach my desktop is when i can finally open social media and respond to messages. Again, desktop social media is way less addictive so I’ve found that I get to respond to messages but don’t feel the need to scroll. And because I’m literally about to work, it’s time boxed!
On the way home is same as the morning commute except now I’m answering Whatsapp messages and catching up with family and loved ones so it’s not as tempting to scroll on social
Then finally before bed, it’s the evening skin care routine (which takes time!!!) and then some reading before I doze off, with my phone plugged in its charger at the foot of my bed (even if I have along ass charger and a socket next to my bed.
On the weekends, it’s terrible cause I’ll scroll while watching TV, so now I’ve made sure I have a knitting project to keep my hands occupied. So whomever wants something knitted, just holler because I have time.
And still, with all of these, i’m still pretty addicted. i can notice my decreasing dependence, but it’s still there. My average “screentime” per day according to my time tracking is around 0.75 hours per day (back in 2022). This year 2023, YTD i’m at 0.48 which isn’t terrible but could definitely be better. Especially since I have some highs of 1.5 (November 2022 — hello US midterms) and 0.81 (March 2023 — aka depressing times at the office).
So if anyone has any tips short of throwing my phone out the window and/or uninstalling the apps (I do use it a lot for messaging and i”m trying to shift folks to whatsapp instead), I’m all ears. I’ll miss Twitter if it does die, but my screentime will be happier.
