How to stop doomscrolling | TechCrunch

The world is sometimes bad, but it’s even worse if you can’t stop looking in the devouring abyss which is the 6 -inch screen of a smartphone, you are following in space and time. It taunts you with its compact and light construction fairly small to slip into your pocket and take anywhere – but its siren call is so strong that for any reason, we cannot sleep without our phone on our numbers.

While we are going to the horrors around us, it can come to mind that you would feel more calm and more attentive and balanced if you do not pick up your phone dozens of times a day to make a decor. It plays with our brain To intersect our day with overviews in the most extreme and extreme tiktoks, only to turn to X or Bluesky and see the titles of the overwhelming news.

Like any bad habit, conviction is difficult to kick. But it is not desperate – or at least, I hope that this is not the case. So how do you stop the conviction? It’s not that simple, but at the very least, we have some ideas on how you can prepare for success.

Understand that this is not your fault

First of all, you are not the problem. The problem is that our lives have become so deeply linked to technological companies that seek to capture as much time as possible. If I use my Apple Watch to follow a training, I end up seeing text messages appear while I try to catch my breath after having run a steep hill. If I continue Spotify to listen to a specific album, I open the application and I immediately see recommendations for podcasts and audio books that generally do not interest me. Or if I download Snapchat only for a group cat where my friends send photos of their pets, then each animal image is delivered with an advertisement, a strangely push notification, or an AR marketing filter for which I have not registered. It is not surprising that our phones make us crazy.

I do not believe that Mark Zuckerberg is seated in his lair – probably in his “metavese” – imagine ways to make my life personally worsen. But it is the inherent nature of consumer technology companies: our attention is what keeps them afloat, and the more we pay attention to them, the happier their investors, and the equity prices are increasing, etc. Even with knowledge of the functioning of these companies, it is always difficult to break our bad habits. I will always open my Instagram account to see what my friend sent me, only to find my conscience 10 minutes later after looking at dozens of coils.

Configure screen times and take them seriously

During the first years after Apple presented the screen time functionality on iPhones, I deliberately chose not to turn it on – I was afraid of what I could learn about myself. But this fear in itself told me that I had a problem. Knowledge is power, and if we know which applications aspire most of our time, then we can slow down the time we spend on them.

Here is how to define screen time limits for specific applications on iOS:

• Open the Settings application.
• Scroll down for screen, which is indicated with a hourglass icon.
• Here you can see your daily average screen time and define railings for you, hopefully, reduce this average.
• Under the use of the limit, there are different ways to reduce your screen time: stop time and application limits.
  • Downtime Defines a calendar of when you can use certain applications. Maybe you define downtime for the hours you usually sleep, or maybe you create a more customizable daily schedule. If you find yourself on Instagram for too much during lessons, it may be the time to set a limit.
    • Rather than choosing the applications to be limited during downtime, you define the applications you want always allowwhich is also accessible in the menu use of limits. If you have friends and family abroad, for example, you probably want to make sure you can always access WhatsApp. Or, if you are like me and sometimes need audio books to fall asleep, you may allow unlimited Libby access.
  • Application limits This is where you can define the time you want to spend on certain applications per day. You can define individual limits for specific applications, or perhaps you group a category of applications (Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Tiktok, X, etc.) and define a global delay for these applications.

Apple’s integrated screen time tools are effective, but they are a bit easy to get around; If you look at a super tiktok and suddenly get a contextual window that your time has passed, you can just press a button to give yourself another 15 minutes … and then do the same after 15 minutes.

Some people choose to use third -party applications to motivate them to reduce their screen time, which can approach the potential traps of the existing Apple features.

Here are some applications designed to limit your screen time:

• ScrepingzenAvailable on iOS and Android, allows you to create contextual windows that appear before opening certain applications. So before opening Instagram, for example, you can see a 10-second contextual window that reads as follows: “Is it important?” You can also ask that the application invites you to breathe deeply before opening the applications, and it is gaming your success to stay below. My friend is currently working with a 144 -day sequence, which they refuse to sacrifice for a quick jerk of dopamine on an inappropriate condition.
• Opal, available on iOS, Android and the web, focuses more specifically on increasing productivity at work or at school. The application is more customizable to limit the screen time than the integrated Apple features. You can focus not only on times, but also on the frequency you open an application (for example, you may want to open the Instagram application only three times a day).
• The roots, available on iOS, are not only focused on the time you spend on your phone, but also on the quality of this time. Some users particularly like the “monk mode” of the application, which can be activated to make it impossible to bypass one of its application limits – even if you go so far as to delete the application. But if you have been really diligent with your limits, you can unlock “cheating days”.

We have gathered physical devices that can help you stop watching the screens.

So, you have opened Tiktok and your screen times have refused access to you, but now you don’t know what to do. Maybe you line up at the coffee and need a distraction. And of course, in an ideal world, we could simply be bored without spontaneous combustion, but it is not an ideal world.

Here are other things you can do on your phone that do not involve social media:

• Read a book. No, really. On applications like Ibooks And To light upYou can change your settings to scroll to read a book, instead of returning page by page. You literally scroll, but instead, you may learn something.
  • You don’t want to buy books? You don’t have to! Libby Connect with your library card to allow you to access the electronic books and audio books on your phone.
  • You don’t know what to read? I’m really sorry, but you may have to understand it on Booktok.
• Play games. Of course, games can also be addictive, but at least games will not inform you that the world has imploded in a new and unexpected way. Each application copies all other applications, but in the case of games the size of a bite, once a day, it’s a good thing.
  • THE New York Times Games The application will allow you to play fast games like Wordle, Strons and the mini crosswords, even if you are not a subscriber. But Gray Lady’s Games have been so successful that other applications take bait.
  • Listen to me. Games on Liendin are really really fun. Of course, you can have a jump by a post from your old, bad boss, but the Tango in particular is worth it.