The world is bad sometimes, but it feels even worse if you can’t stop staring into the all-consuming abyss that is the 6-inch screen of a smartphone, following you through space and time. It taunts you with its compact, light build that’s small enough to slip into your pocket and take anywhere — yet its siren call is so strong that for some reason, we cannot sleep without our phone on our nightstands.
As we weather the horrors around us, it may occur to you that you would feel calmer and more attentive and balanced if you did not pick up your phone dozens of times a day to doomscroll. It’s messing with our brains to intersperse our day with glimpses into the most extreme, engagement-baiting TikToks, only to flip over to X or Bluesky and see crushing news headlines.
Like any bad habit, doomscrolling is hard to kick. But it’s not hopeless — or at least, I hope it isn’t. So, how do you stop doomscrolling? It’s not all that easy, but at the very least, we have some ideas about how you can set yourself up for success.
Understand that this isn’t your fault
First of all, you aren’t the problem. The problem is that our lives have become so deeply intertwined with tech companies that are looking to capture as much of our time as possible. If I use my Apple Watch to track a workout, I end up seeing text messages crop up while I’m trying to catch my breath after running up a steep hill. If I go on Spotify to listen to a specific album, I open the app and immediately see recommendations for podcasts and audiobooks that I’m not typically interested in. Or if I download Snapchat solely for a group chat where my friends send pictures of their pets, then each pet picture comes with some advertisement, extraneous push notification, or AR marketing filter that I didn’t sign up for. It’s no wonder that our phones make us feel crazy.
I don’t believe that Mark Zuckerberg is sitting in his lair — probably within his “metaverse” — dreaming up ways to personally make my life worse. But it is the inherent nature of consumer tech companies: Our attention is what keeps them afloat, and the more we pay attention to them, the happier their investors are, and the stock prices rise, and so on. Even with the knowledge of how these companies operate, it’s still difficult to break our bad habits. I will still open my Instagram account to see what my friend sent me, only to regain my consciousness 10 minutes later after I’ve watched dozens of Reels.
Set up screen time limits, and take them seriously
For the first several years after Apple introduced the Screen Time feature on iPhones, I chose deliberately not to turn it on — I was afraid of what I might learn about myself. But that fear in itself told me that I have a problem. Knowledge is power, and if we know which apps are sucking up most of our time, then we can curb how much time we spend on them.
Here’s how to set screen time limits for specific apps on iOS:
- Open the Settings app.
- Scroll down to Screen Time, which is denoted with an hourglass icon.
- Here, you can see your daily average screen time and set guardrails for yourself to hopefully lower that average.
- Under Limit Usage, there are a few different ways you can reduce your screen time: downtime and app limits.
- Downtime sets a schedule of when you can use certain apps. Maybe you set downtime for the hours you usually sleep, or maybe you create a more customizable day-to-day schedule. If you find yourself going on Instagram during class too much, maybe that’s a time to set a limit.
- Rather than choosing which apps to limit during downtime, you set which apps you want to always allow, which is also accessible under the Limit Usage menu. If you have friends and family abroad, for example, you probably want to make sure that you can always access WhatsApp. Or, if you’re like me and sometimes need audiobooks to fall asleep, then maybe you’ll allow unlimited Libby access.
- App Limits is where you can set how much time you want to spend on certain apps per day. You could set individual limits for specific apps, or maybe you lump a category of apps together (Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok, X, etc.) and set an overall time limit for those apps.
- Downtime sets a schedule of when you can use certain apps. Maybe you set downtime for the hours you usually sleep, or maybe you create a more customizable day-to-day schedule. If you find yourself going on Instagram during class too much, maybe that’s a time to set a limit.
Apple’s built-in Screen Time tools are effective, but they’re a bit easy to circumvent; if you’re watching a great TikTok and suddenly get 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 go by.
Some people opt to use third-party apps to motivate them to reduce their screen time, which can address potential pitfalls of Apple’s existing functionality.
Here are some apps that are designed to limit your screen time:
- ScreenZen, available on iOS and Android, lets you create pop-ups that appear before you open certain apps. So, before you open Instagram, for example, you may see a 10-second pop-up that reads, “Is this important?” You can also have the app prompt you to take deep breaths before opening apps, and it gamifies your success at remaining under time limits. My friend is currently working with a 144-day streak, which they refuse to sacrifice for one quick jolt of ill-timed dopamine.
- Opal, available on iOS, Android, and the web, focuses more specifically on boosting productivity at work or at school. The app is more customizable in limiting screen time than Apple’s built-in features. You can focus not just on times, but also on how often you open an app (e.g., maybe you only want to open the Instagram app three times a day).
- Roots, available on iOS, doesn’t just focus on how much time you’re spending on your phone, but also on the quality of that time. Some users especially love the app’s “Monk Mode,” which can be activated to make it impossible to bypass any of its app limits — even if you go as far as deleting the app. But if you’ve been really diligent with your limits, you can unlock “cheat days.”
We rounded up some physical devices that can help you stop looking at screens too much.
So, you’ve opened TikTok and your screen time limits have denied you access, but now you don’t know what to do. Maybe you’re standing in line at the coffee shop and need a distraction. And sure, in an ideal world, we could simply be bored without spontaneously combusting, but this isn’t an ideal world.
Here are some other things you can do on your phone that do not involve social media:
- Read a book. No, really. On apps like iBooks and Kindle, you can change your settings so that you scroll to read a book, instead of flipping page by page. You’re literally scrolling, but instead, maybe you’ll learn something.
- Don’t want to buy books? You don’t have to! Libby connects with your library card to let you access e-books and audiobooks from your phone.
- Don’t know what to read? I’m so sorry, but you might have to go figure it out on BookTok.
- Play games. Sure, games can be addicting, too, but at least games won’t inform you that the world has imploded in a new, unexpected way. Every app copies every other app, but in the case of bite-sized, once-per-day games, this is a good thing.
- The New York Times Games app will let you play quick games like Wordle, Strands, and the Mini Crossword, even if you aren’t a subscriber. But the Gray Lady’s games have been so successful that other apps are taking the bait.
- Hear me out. The games on LinkedIn are actually really fun. Sure, you may get jump-scared by a post from your old, bad boss, but Tango in particular is worth the risk.
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