I am almost 100% certain that at some point in your life you have fallen victim to the dreaded doom scroll trap. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Consider the following scenario:

You tell yourself you’re just going to lay down for 15 minutes to look at your phone before getting started on homework. 

This is fine, you think. 

I just need a quick break before I start being productive. After this, I’ll be able to work extra hard, since I’ll be so well-rested.

Three hours later, you find yourself in the exact same position. Only after you snap out of your TikTok-fuelled trance do you realise what just happened; three hours of your life are now just…gone. That awful feeling starts to sink in after you come to your senses, and instead of feeling recharged and ready to tackle the work ahead of you, you feel significantly worse than when you initially laid down to scroll. 

It’s not fun, it sucks, and it makes you feel like kind of a terrible person (even though you’re not!). 

Maxim Ilyahov / Unsplash

“Doom scrolling” specifically refers to scrolling through tons of negative news and stories on social media, but recently it’s been used to describe just mindlessly scrolling through anything and everything for hours at a time. A big part of it is feeling like you’re unable to pull away, whether you’re in a full-on trance or just incapable of putting the cell phone down. There are a few reasons that this scrolling phenomenon occurs:

1. While you’re scrolling and continuously interacting with more and more positive stimuli, your brain produces dopamine, which is a hormone that gets released whenever you do something that makes you happy since it is associated with pleasure and the “reward centre” of the brain. The more you scroll, the more stuff you interact with, the more dopamine you make, and the happier you feel. 
2. On apps like TikTok, Instagram, X (Twitter), etc., the content there is endless, meaning you can just scroll for infinity. You will never run out of dumb videos to watch or pictures to look at or posts to read. The apps are designed this way to encourage you to just keep scrolling without providing any endpoints, which is what makes it so difficult to stop. 
3. Whenever your phone dings and beeps to alert you of a text or whatever it may be, a lot of us experience an almost uncontrollable compulsion to check the notification, even at the most inconvenient of times. Receiving a notification is a strong pull back to the phone in many cases as well.

As cool and useful as smartphones are, it sure does feel like they’ve got us in their clutches. Have you ever seen those “political cartoon” drawings that your old relatives repost on Facebook about the younger generation being addicted to their phones and stuff along those lines? That’s the feeling I’m trying to invoke here. When I end up spending way more time on my phone or even just one the computer, I wind up feeling pretty guilty about it. By the end of it my brain feels like MUSH. Can you relate? 

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Another aspect of this issue I’d like to touch on briefly is information overload. I mean, there has been no other point in history where humans have had unfettered access to this much information. If you want to learn anything about anything, you can easily do so thanks to The Internet. Learning a new skill can be fast tracked thanks to ever-helpful YouTube tutorials, and the answers to all of the questions in the universe can be delivered to you in a matter of milliseconds with a Google search. Honestly, I don’t believe that we were ever meant to know this much stuff. Sometimes as I’m scrolling or reading my 20th nonsense article of the day, I feel like my brain is about to explode from trying to absorb way too much info at once. 

Thinking about this stuff too much can definitely inspire dread, but fear not! There is hope yet!! As someone who essentially grew up on the internet, I’ve had to learn throughout my life how to pull back, disconnect, and live in the real world for a little while. Here are some epic strats that I try to implement in my life when I can:

• DO. NOT. DISTURB!!!
  • All smartphones have the ability to turn off notifications by putting the phone in “Do Not Disturb” mode (at least, iPhones do). This means that your phone will no longer beep and buzz anytime something happens, and you can experience true PEACE. But really, having notifications off on your phone makes it a million times easier to forget about its existence and curb your desire to check it constantly. If you’re wanting to put your full attention into something, I recommend giving Do Not Disturb a try. When I’m reading, journaling, crafting, or doing homework (like I am RIGHT NOW), I always try my best to make sure that I’m not receiving any incoming notifications. These things can wait!
• Bye Bye Phone…
  • Simply keeping your phone out of reach is another very effective way to stay off of it…because, you know, it’s physically distant from you. With this method, you won’t be able to just reach over and grab it, or at least that’s the idea. When I’m sitting down to get some real work done, for instance, it helps if I keep my phone in my backpack, or put it in the closet or something. I find that if I have my phone physically near me while I’m trying to be productive, the temptation to check it is just too high, so keeping it far away helps quite a bit. 
• Keep track of screen time
  • This one is scary, I’ll be the first to admit. iPhones have the ability to track your app usage and total screen time, and if you allow it, it’ll give you a little summary report at the end of each week. When Apple first rolled out this feature, I remember immediately turning it off out of embarrassment. I really did not want a weekly reminder that I was spending seven hours a day staring at my cellular phone. I’ve learned since, however, that having it on is a good way to 1) humble yourself and 2) manage the amount of time you’re actually spending on the phone. Holding yourself accountable is important here. Aiming to lower your average daily screen time is a great way to actually commit to doing it!

My best piece of advice is really just to ignore your phone and/or computer as much as you can, and invest your time into other things. Even if those other things aren’t necessarily “productive”, it doesn’t matter–having hobbies outside of scrolling is what’s important here. At the end of the day, being mindful of the time spent on your phone is what will be beneficial to you in the long run.