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The world is bad sometimes , but it feel even bad if you ca n’t give up staring into the all - consuming abyss that is the 6 - in screen of a smartphone , following you through space and time . It cod you with its compact , wanton habitus that ’s small enough to slip into your pocket and take anywhere , and its siren call is so strong that for some ground , we can not sleep without our phone on our nightstands .
As we weatherthe horrors around us , it may happen to you that you would feel calmer and more thoughtful and balanced if you did not pick up your phone dozens of times a day to doomscroll . It ’s messing with our brainsto intersperse our day with glimpses into the most extreme , engagement - tease TikToks , only to flip over to X or Bluesky and see crushing news headline .
Like any bad habit , doomscrolling is hard to kvetch . But it ’s not hopeless . So how do you stop doomscrolling ? We have some ideas about how you may set yourself up for success .
Understand that this isn’t your fault
I do n’t conceive that Mark Zuckerberg is sitting in his den — probably within his “ metaverse ” — dreaming up room to personally make my life worse . But it is the inherent nature of consumer tech company that our attention is what keep them afloat , and the more we pay attention to them , the happier their investors are , and the pedigree prices rise , and so on . Even with the knowledge of how these company operate on , it ’s still hard to break our regretful habits . I will still open my Instagram account to see what my friend sent me , only to retrieve my knowingness 10 minute afterwards after I ’ve watched 12 of Reels .
Set up screen time limits, and take them seriously
For the first several year after Apple introduced the Screen Time lineament on iPhones , I take deliberately not to turn it on — I was afraid of what I might learn about myself . But that awe in itself state me that I have a problem . Knowledge is power , and if we know which apps are suck up most of our metre , then we can check how much prison term we spend on them .
Here ’s how to congeal sieve fourth dimension point of accumulation for specific apps on iOS :
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Apple ’s built - in Screen Time dick are effective , but they ’re a fleck easy to circumvent ; if you ’re watching a great TikTok and suddenly get a pop - up that your metre is up , you could just tap a push to give yourself another 15 minutes … and then do the same thing after another 15 minutes go by .
Some citizenry opt to use third - party apps to move them to reduce their sieve time , which can plow likely pit of Apple ’s existing functionality .
Here are some apps that are designed to limit your screen door clip :
We rounded up some physical devicesthat can help oneself you terminate see at covert too much , as well .
Stop doomscrolling by just doing something else
So , you ’ve open TikTok and your filmdom time limits have denied you access , but now you do n’t know what to do . Maybe you ’re standing in line at the coffee shop class and postulate a beguilement . And for sure , in an idealistic humankind , we could simply be bored without spontaneously ignite , but this is n’t an idealistic world .
Here are some other matter you may do on your phone that do not imply societal media :
