Wake up, roll over, check your phone. Look for notifications, find none, open an app. Content. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, something to tap through, scroll, watch, like, share and comment on. Just for a minute, a couple of minutes…Glance at the time, an hour has passed, and you’re nearly late to class.

Honestly, my screen time is terrible. I dread receiving that weekly notification telling me just how many hours I have spent looking at my phone. All the time I keep some sort of video playing in the background of my everyday tasks to distract my brain from thinking. I remember how many rabbit holes I’ve been down based on a single post that made me panic. 

I’m perfectly primed to spiral into helplessness at the state of the world

I research more about the post, open a tab to google it, skim read articles that make everything sound worse, watch another video that depicts my outrage, read through the comments and click on a link to another similar post. I’m perfectly primed to spiral into helplessness at the state of the world; I feel so much yet there is so little I can do. 

Doomscrolling was first coined in 2020 as spending ‘excessive time online scrolling through news or other content that makes one feel sad, anxious, angry, etc.’ You can scroll past wars, climate disasters, worsening political leaders, economic unrest, and  hundreds of pleas for help. There’s so much happening, combined with the fear that you’re a bad person for looking away, putting the phone down doesn’t feel like an option. But it should be. 

The more time we spend online, clicking through video after video of the horrors of the world fused with memes created by 12 year olds, the more we become desensitised. The fear that triggers doomscrolling becomes commonplace inside of us; caring becomes less of a feeling, and more of an obligation. The internet has everything we could ever hope to see and yet everything we don’t want to see. If you’re anything at all like me, then you are in dire need of a detox.

The internet has everything we could ever hope to see and yet everything we don’t want to see

Taking a digital detox has been a concept for about as long as the internet has existed. Aggressive anti-screen bootcamps in the 2000s evolved into celebrity-promoted social media breaks in the 2010s. And as things took a turn in 2020 we had little choice but to stare at our screens, so discussions about putting down our phones have been ever present. But is it that simple? 

Our phones are indispensable to us. They’re a tool of modern ultra-convenience that the majority of us grew up with and haven’t experienced life without. Phones are how we communicate with everyone, they give us immediate access to any information we need, and they aid us in nearly every daily task we perform. To check the weather, listen to music, manage an event, note something down, add something up, count your steps, track your bank account, and as every University of Birmingham student will know, track your schedule and attendance. Ryanair has recently gotten rid of paper boarding passes, so if you don’t have your phone ready for a flight – you’re not going anywhere. 

So what’s a realistic approach?

Try consuming less short-form content. The act of scrolling endlessly and taking in a million things at once is a large part of the problem that keeps us trapped. Turn to longer videos on YouTube or a film, which affords you the time to take in a single concept for longer than five minutes and will do so much good. Delay the instant gratification your mind has adapted to through scrolling and sit with something substantial. 

Begin the day without scrolling. Take a minute when you wake up to stretch, make a coffee, pack your bag or even do a two minute plank. Anything that allows your brain to come alive without an algorithm trapping you in place. When you don’t overwhelm your brain with stimuli within the period of time before being fully awake, you’re allowing yourself to mentally regulate. 

Delay the instant gratification your mind has adapted to through scrolling

Limit your time on your screen and apps. Implement practical measures that prevent using social media before a certain time of day, or only giving yourself a few hours a day to scroll. You could prioritise messaging friends or looking at more educational videos, which will make you aware of the tangible amount of time you spend online.

Less time spent scrolling and improved concentration means you can relax. Pick up your hobbies, discover new skills, take advantage of the spring weather and go outside. It may be oversimplified to tell you to go outside and touch grass. But when the weight of the world hangs over us, I think it’s definitely worth a try.