How to stop doomscrolling | Techcrunch

The world is sometimes bad, but it's worse if you can't stop staring at all the depths that are the 6-inches screen of a smartphone, which follows you through space and time. It makes you compact, light build a little enough to slip into your pocket and take anywhere – yet its siren calls so powerful that for some reason, we can't sleep without our phone on our nightstands.

While we are -Weather The masses -awful around usIt may happen to you that you will feel calm and more attentive and balanced if you have not taken your phone twelve times a day to perish. It hates brains To interpret our day with glances at the most intense, contact-bait Tiktoks, just flip up to Xo Bluesky and see the crushing news titles.

Like any bad habit, doomscrolling is difficult to kick. But it's not hopeless – or at least, I hope it's not. So, how do you stop doomscrolling? It's not all that easy, but somehow, we have some ideas about how you can set up yourself for success.

Understand that it is not your fault

First of all, you are not the problem. The problem is that our lives have become so deep in contact with tech companies looking to get as much time as possible. If I use my Apple Watch to track a workout, I'm finishing seeing text messages that scop as I try to catch my breath after running a steep hill. If I go to Spotify to listen to a specific album, I open the app and immediately see the recommendations for podcasts and audiobooks that I am not usually interested in. Or if I download Snapchat just for a chat group where my friends send pictures of their pets, then every pet picture has some advertisement, extraneous push notifications, or AR marketing filter that I didn't sign up for. No wonder our phones make us happy.

I don't believe Mark Zuckerberg is sitting in his nest – maybe within his “metaverse” – dreaming ways to personally worsen my life. But this is the nature of consumer tech companies: our attention is what keeps them floating, and we pay more attention to them, their investors are happier, and to increase stock prices, and so on. Even with the knowledge of how these companies run, it is still difficult to ruin our bad habits. I will still open my Instagram account to see what my friend sent me, just to recover my consciousness 10 minutes later after I watched the twelve -wheeled tires.

I -set up screen time limits, and take them seriously

In the first few years after Apple introduced the screen time feature on the iPhones, I chose to know it not – I was afraid of what I could know about myself. But that fear itself told me I had a problem. Knowledge is power, and if we know which apps are consuming most of our time, then we can hinder how much time we spend with them.

Here's how to set screen time limits for specific apps on iOS:

• Open the settings app.
• Scroll down to screen time, as determined by an hourglass icon.
• Here, you can see your sun -average screen time and set the guards for yourself that would have been that average.
• Under the use of the limit, there are several different ways you can reduce your screen time: downtime and app limits.
  • Downtime Sets a schedule when you can use some apps. You probably set time for times when you usually sleep, or maybe you create a more customizable daily schedule. If you find yourself going to Instagram during class so much, maybe it's a time to set a limit.
    • Instead of choosing which apps to limit at downtime time, you set which apps you want Always allowwhich will also be accessible under the Limit Use Menu. If you have friends and family abroad, for example, you probably want to make sure you can always access WhatsApp. Or, if you like me and sometimes need audiobooks to sleep, then maybe you will allow unlimited access to Libby.
  • App Limitations is where you can set how much time you want to spend on some apps per day. You can set individual limits for specific apps, or you may emerge a category of apps together (Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Tiktok, X, etc.) and set a general time limit for apps.

Apple screen time tools are effective, but they are relatively easy to turn; If you're watching a good tick and suddenly take a pop-up that your time is up, you can just tap a button to give yourself another 15 minutes … and then do the same thing after another 15 minutes pass.

Some people choose to use third-party apps to motivate them to reduce their screen time, which can meet the potential pitfalls of Apple's existing functionality.

Here are some apps designed to limit your screen time:

• ScreenzenAvailable on iOS and Android, lets you create pop-ups that will appear before you open some apps. So, before you open Instagram, for example, you can see a 10-second pop-up reading, “Is this important?” You can also have the app that prompts you to breathe deeply before opening the apps, and it talks about your success with the rest under time limits. My friend is currently working on a 144-day streak, which they refuse to sacrifice for a quick jolt of unintecessible dopamine.
• OpalAvailable on iOS, Android, and the web, is focused more specifically in boosting work productivity or school. The app is more customizable to limiting screen time than Apple's built-in features. You can focus not only on times, but also how often you open an app (e.g., maybe you just want to open the Instagram app three times a day).
• RootsAvailable on iOS, not only focus on how much time you spend on your phone, but also the quality of that time. Some users especially like to “Monk Mode,” which can be activated to make it impossible to miss any of its app limits -even if you go until the app removal. But if you are really enthusiastic about your limits, you can unlock “cheat days.”

We spin some physical devices That will help you stop looking at the screens.

So, you opened the Tiktok and your screen time limitations have declined you to access, but now you don't know what to do. Maybe you're standing in line at the coffee store and needing a mess. And sure, in a good world, we can only be stoned without burning, but this is not a good world.

Here are some other things you can do with your phone that is not involved in social media:

• Read a book. No, really. In apps such as ibooks and KindleYou can change your settings so you can scroll to read a book, instead of flipping the page. You literally scrolled, but instead, you might learn something.
  • I don't want to buy books? You don't have to! Libby Connects your library card to let you access e-books and audiobooks from your phone.
  • Don't know what to read? I apologize, but you may need to know it in Booktok.
• Play games. Sure, games may be addictive, but at least in games will not let you know that the world has been implicated in a new, unexpected way. Each app copies each other app, but in the case of bite-size, one-time-day game, this is a good thing.
  • The New York Times Games The app will let you play fast games like Wordle, Strands, and the Mini Crossword, even if you're not a subscriber. But Gray Lady games have been so successful that other apps are taking bait.
  • Listen to me. The Games in LinkedIn is really fun. Sure, you can get a jump-scared of a post from your old, bad boss, but the tango in particular is worth the risk.