How to stop doomscrolling | TechCrunch

Sometimes the world is bad, but it’s even worse if you can’t stop staring at your smartphone’s 6-inch screen and follow your time and time. Its compact, lightweight fabric is small enough to slide into your pocket and take anywhere, and the sirens are so strong that for some reason we can’t sleep without a cell phone on the nightstand.

When our weather The horror around usIf you don’t take a few dozen times a day to distribute it, you may think that you will feel more calm, more attentive and balanced. It’s messed with our brains To radiate a glimpse of our day, go into the most extreme, engaged tiktoks, just flip to X or Bluesky and see shocking news headlines.

Like any bad habit, devastating obstacles are hard to kick. But this is not hopeless. So, how to stop devastating friction? We have some ideas on how to prepare for success.

It’s not your fault to understand

First of all, you are not the problem. The problem is that our lives are already deeply intertwined with tech companies seeking as much time as possible. If I track my workout with an Apple Watch, I end up seeing text messages appearing when I breathe on a steep hill. If I listen to a specific album on Spotify, I open the app and immediately see suggestions for podcasts and audiobooks that I’m not usually interested in. Or, if I download Snapchat only for my friends and my friends send pictures of their pets in my friends, each PET image comes with some ads, with some irrelevant push notifications or AR marketing filters, or I’m not signed up. No wonder our phone calls made us feel crazy.

I don’t believe Mark Zuckerberg was sitting in his lair (probably in his “meta-angle”) dreaming of ways to make my life worse. But the inherent nature of consumer tech companies keeps our attention keeping them alive, and the more we pay attention to them, the happier investors, stock prices rise, and so on. Even knowing how these companies work, it is still difficult to violate our bad habits. I still open my Instagram account and see what my friends gave me, and it’s only 10 minutes later that I can’t get back to my consciousness after watching it for a few dozen minutes.

Set screen time limits and take them seriously

In the first few years after Apple introduced the Screen Time feature on iPhone, I deliberately didn’t turn it on – I was worried about what I might learn. But this fear itself tells me I have a problem. Knowledge is power, and if we know which applications absorb most of our time most of our time, then we can curb how much time we spend.

Here is the screen time limit for a specific app on iOS:

• Open the Settings app.
• Scroll down to screen time and indicate it with an hourglass icon.
• Here you can see the average screen time every day and set up a guardrail for yourself, hoping to lower the average.
• With usage restrictions, there are several different ways to reduce screen time: downtime and application limitations.
  • Downtime Set a schedule for when certain applications can be used. Maybe you set down time for your usual bedtime, or you can create a more customizable day-to-day schedule. If you find yourself going to Instagram too much during class, maybe it’s time to set limits.
    • Instead of choosing which apps to limit during downtime, you set the app you want Always allowcan also be accessed under the restricted use menu. For example, if you have friends and family abroad, you might want to make sure you can always access WhatsApp. Or, if you, like me, sometimes need audiobooks to fall asleep, maybe you allow unlimited Libby access.
  • Application Limitations Here you can set how much time you want to spend on certain applications. You can set a single limit for a specific application, or maybe put a class of applications together (Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Tiktok, X, etc.) and set an overall time limit for those applications.

Apple’s built-in screen time tools work, but they’re easy to bypass; if you’re watching a great tiktok and suddenly pops up your time has come, you can just click a button and give yourself another 15 minutes…and then do the same thing after another 15 minutes.

Some people choose to use third-party apps to inspire them to reduce screen time, which can solve the potential pitfalls of Apple’s existing features.

Here are some apps designed to limit your screen time:

• ScreenZenavailable on iOS and Android, allows you to create popups that appear before certain apps are opened. So, for example, before opening Instagram, you might see a 10-second pop-up that says, “Is this important?” You can also prompt you to take a deep breath before opening the app and can succeed with the remaining time limit. My friends are currently using a 144-day streak and they refuse to sacrifice a quick stir-frying dopamine.
• opalavailable on iOS, Android and the web, is more specifically designed to improve productivity at work or school. The app is more customizable than Apple’s built-in features when limiting screen time. You can focus not only on time, but also on how often you open your app (e.g., maybe you just want to open your Instagram app three times a day).
• rootavailable on iOS, not only paying attention to how much time you spend on your phone, but also the quality at that time. Some users especially like the app’s “monk mode” that can activate the app even if you can delete it so that it can’t bypass any of its app restrictions. However, if you are really hardworking with the restrictions, you can unlock Cheat Day.
• Touch grassavailable on iOS, can do what its name suggests: It will let you touch the grass. In order to use some blocking apps, you have to go outside and take pictures of the grass from actually walking out. No, houseplants don’t work. If you want to avoid going out, you can buy “Skip” for as low as 99 cents. Skip half of the profit to support Shigeo effort.

We’ve sorted out some physical equipment This can also help you stop looking at the screen too much.

So you have Tiktok turned on and your screen time limit has denied your access, but now you don’t know what to do. Maybe you are queuing up in a coffee shop and need to be distracted. It is certain that in an ideal world we can simply be bored without spontaneously burning, but this is not an ideal world.

Some other things you can do on your phone that don’t involve social media:

• read. No, really. On similar applications ibooks and igniteyou can change the settings so that you can scroll to read books instead of flipping by page. You are actually scrolling, but, maybe you will learn something.
  • Don’t want to buy books? You don’t have to! Libby Connect with your Kuka, which allows you to access e-books and audiobooks from your phone.
  • Don’t know what to read? Sorry, you may have to figure it out on Booktok.
• Play the game. Of course, games can also be addictive, but at least the game won’t tell you that the world collapses in a new, unexpected way. Each app copies all the other apps, but it’s a good thing for games that bite once a day.
  • this New York Times Games Even if you are not a subscriber, the app allows you to play fast games like Wordle, Strands, and Mini crosswords. But the Grey Lady’s game is so successful that other apps are baiting.
  • listen to me. this The game starts LinkedIn It’s actually really fun. Sure, you might get a jump shot from old, bad boss posts, but tango is especially worth the risk.