One day it, not that long ago, it came to me; in order to live my life to the fullest I have to get off my phone. I think our parents were right when they said “It’s that damn phone!” and I didn’t believe them, but now I do. I looked at my sceen time for over 4 hours as daily average and said to myself; “No more, this ends now.”
You don’t have to be like me and quit from one day to the other, but that helped for me, cold turkey. Of course I still use my phone, but just for practical things like texting my friends and parents, my alarm, bank app, listening to music,… you know, the basics. I stopped watching tiktok and scrolling on Instagram, I only use Pinterest on my PC and all other social media apps are never used anyway.
One of the things that helped me quit doomscrolling so abrubtly is to treat it like something extra. Not a reward but something that you do from time to time, a small thing in your life. Before I made the decision to lower my screen time, I used to think of social media and my phone in general as something every day, and of course, in modern day life a phone is something almost everyone needs to function. You can’t go out the door without having to use your phone. Taking the bus? Check the times on the app. Going somewhere? Start the Waze. Your friend owns you money? Make a QR code. Want something to eat? Scan the code to see our menu. But TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat,… all that is something extra. It shouldn’t be something you need to function in life. I used to be on my phone at the restaurant table with my family and now I think “How rude was I to be on my phone while I had family or friends with me.”
One thing I noticed since I stopped using my phone so often is the amound of time that opens up. People say “Life is so busy, I have no time.”, and of course you have no time when your screen time is over 5 hours a day. I have a job with split hours and in between my shifts I go home and I was always surprised how I got absolutely nothing done, until I got off my phone in my free time, and now I have time left. I filled in my free time with reading, coloring, making puzzles, playing piano, solving sudokus, writing, drawing, baking, studying, cooking, cleaning something out,… which is way more productive than doomscrolling on TikTok.
Since I’m not constantly being inputted (Idk if this words exists but it’s how I would describe it) by Tiktok videos, Pins, Reels, Instagram stories,… my mind returned to its normal state. What once was complete chaos from all the input is now a structured maze of (decent) thoughts. People who say you can’t undo brainrot are wrong. I no longer need that constant stimulus and instead I create my own input.
A fun thing I do to stim my brain (I have ADHD so the brain needs to be fed with stims or the brain dies) is to fucus on things just like when you were a kid. I finally saw the leaves changes over fall again. I work on an elementary school so it’s pretty easy for me to know how children think (my other credential is that I was once a child too). I see them do the exact things I did as a child and realised; we didn’t lose things from our childhood, we simply just lost our childhood. Jump in a puddle, roll down a hill, play a boardgame, watch an old dvd, be excited for Christmas, dress up for Halloween, build a sand castle, wonder, wander, explore.
Let this be the sign to stop reading this, put your phone down and do something else. When you don’t need it, put it on DND and leave it in the other room.
Thank me later,
Luna ⏾⋆.˚