Are you losing hours and days of your precious time and attention to scrolling on social media? This episode will help you take your focus back.
Best practices and resources for reducing the doom scroll:
Delete apps from your phone:
Don’t be afraid to be extreme. I deleted IG from my phone for 90 days. The cognitive peace I experienced was beautiful.
Put your phone on grayscale:
This is a simple hack that makes your phone black and white and has been shown to naturally reduce your desire to be on your phone.
App blockers:
I use the blocker Freedom to completely lock certain apps for big chunks of the day. Right now I can only get on social media from my phone for a few hours in the morning. The rest of the time, it’s completely locked out. I’ve put the settings so there is literally no way to disable it (because otherwise I would).
Disable all notifications.
I’ve disabled all notifications from every app. I do not get badges. I do not have home screen notifications. The only exception is Stripe.
That means the only time my phone ever buzzes or tries to get my attention is because someone is paying me.
Whenever I’m hanging out with someone and their phone dings and buzzes multiple times, I feel offended by the disruptions. Who lives like that??Focus mode:
This is probably overkill, but my phone is also always in do not disturb mode. Why? Because I never want to be disturbed. Obviously if you have people dependent on you for different reasons you may need to be accessible, but usually you can add specific contacts who can slip through the do not disturb.
No facial recognition + change passcodes
I have never enabled face recognition on my phone. I do not want it to be unlocked that easily. I want friction between me and opening my phone. I have to enter the passcode every single time I want to get into my phone. Once I notice its too automatic, I change my passcode.
Require passcode for specific apps
You can also lock specific apps using your passcode (or face ID). You just press and hold down the app on your homescreen and click “require passcode” or “require face ID.” Here’s a tutorial
Your time and attention and focus is way too important to fritter it away doom scrolling. Scrolling is not self care. Take your attention back.
If you found this helpful, pass it along to a friend who needs to beat the brain rot.
